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Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are widely used for honey production and crop pollination, raising concern for wild pollinators, as honey bees may compete with wild pollinators for floral resources. The first sign of competition, before changes appear in wild pollinator abundance or diversity, may be ch...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Worthy, Sydney H., Acorn, John H., Frost, Carol M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10343163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37440516
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287332
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author Worthy, Sydney H.
Acorn, John H.
Frost, Carol M.
author_facet Worthy, Sydney H.
Acorn, John H.
Frost, Carol M.
author_sort Worthy, Sydney H.
collection PubMed
description Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are widely used for honey production and crop pollination, raising concern for wild pollinators, as honey bees may compete with wild pollinators for floral resources. The first sign of competition, before changes appear in wild pollinator abundance or diversity, may be changes to wild pollinator interactions with plants. Such changes for a community can be measured by looking at changes to metrics of resource use overlap in plant-pollinator interaction networks. Studies of honey bee effects on plant-pollinator networks have usually not distinguished whether honey bees alter wild pollinator interactions, or if they merely alter total network structure by adding their own interactions. To test this question, we experimentally introduced honey bees to a Canadian grassland and measured plant-pollinator interactions at varying distances from the introduced hives. We found that honey bees increased the network metrics of pollinator and plant functional complementarity and decreased interaction evenness. However, in networks constructed from just wild pollinator interactions, honey bee abundance did not affect any of the metrics calculated. Thus, all network structural changes to the full network (including honey bee interactions) were due only to honey bee-plant interactions, and not to honey bees causing changes in wild pollinator-plant interactions. Given widespread and increasing use of honey bees, it is important to establish whether they affect wild pollinator communities. Our results suggest that honey bees did not alter wild pollinator foraging patterns in this system, even in a year that was drier than the 20-year average.
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spelling pubmed-103431632023-07-14 Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions Worthy, Sydney H. Acorn, John H. Frost, Carol M. PLoS One Research Article Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are widely used for honey production and crop pollination, raising concern for wild pollinators, as honey bees may compete with wild pollinators for floral resources. The first sign of competition, before changes appear in wild pollinator abundance or diversity, may be changes to wild pollinator interactions with plants. Such changes for a community can be measured by looking at changes to metrics of resource use overlap in plant-pollinator interaction networks. Studies of honey bee effects on plant-pollinator networks have usually not distinguished whether honey bees alter wild pollinator interactions, or if they merely alter total network structure by adding their own interactions. To test this question, we experimentally introduced honey bees to a Canadian grassland and measured plant-pollinator interactions at varying distances from the introduced hives. We found that honey bees increased the network metrics of pollinator and plant functional complementarity and decreased interaction evenness. However, in networks constructed from just wild pollinator interactions, honey bee abundance did not affect any of the metrics calculated. Thus, all network structural changes to the full network (including honey bee interactions) were due only to honey bee-plant interactions, and not to honey bees causing changes in wild pollinator-plant interactions. Given widespread and increasing use of honey bees, it is important to establish whether they affect wild pollinator communities. Our results suggest that honey bees did not alter wild pollinator foraging patterns in this system, even in a year that was drier than the 20-year average. Public Library of Science 2023-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10343163/ /pubmed/37440516 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287332 Text en © 2023 Worthy et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Worthy, Sydney H.
Acorn, John H.
Frost, Carol M.
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
title Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
title_full Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
title_fullStr Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
title_full_unstemmed Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
title_short Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
title_sort honey bees (apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10343163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37440516
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287332
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