Cargando…

North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Prairie was a dominant habitat within large portions of North America before European settlement. Conversion of prairies to farmland resulted in the loss of a large proportion of native floral resources, contributing to the decline of native pollinator populations. Efforts to reconstruct prairie cou...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zhang, Ge, St. Clair, Ashley L, Dolezal, Adam G, Toth, Amy L, O’Neal, Matthew E
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7901588/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33620484
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieab001
_version_ 1783654399262851072
author Zhang, Ge
St. Clair, Ashley L
Dolezal, Adam G
Toth, Amy L
O’Neal, Matthew E
author_facet Zhang, Ge
St. Clair, Ashley L
Dolezal, Adam G
Toth, Amy L
O’Neal, Matthew E
author_sort Zhang, Ge
collection PubMed
description Prairie was a dominant habitat within large portions of North America before European settlement. Conversion of prairies to farmland resulted in the loss of a large proportion of native floral resources, contributing to the decline of native pollinator populations. Efforts to reconstruct prairie could provide honey bees (Apis mellifera) a source of much-needed forage, especially in regions dominated by crop production. To what extent honey bees, which were introduced to North America by European settlers, use plants native to prairies is unclear. We placed colonies with pollen traps within reconstructed prairies in central Iowa to determine which and how much pollen is collected from prairie plants. Honey bee colonies collected more pollen from nonnative than native plants during June and July. During August and September, honey bee colonies collected more pollen from plants native to prairies. Our results suggest that honey bees’ use of native prairie plants may depend upon the seasonality of both native and nonnative plants present in the landscape. This finding may be useful for addressing the nutritional health of honey bees, as colonies in this region frequently suffer from a dearth of forage contributing to colony declines during August and September when crops and weedy plants cease blooming. These results suggest that prairie can be a significant source of forage for honey bees in the later part of the growing season in the Midwestern United States; we discuss this insight in the context of honey bee health and biodiversity conservation.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7901588
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Oxford University Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-79015882021-02-26 North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Zhang, Ge St. Clair, Ashley L Dolezal, Adam G Toth, Amy L O’Neal, Matthew E J Insect Sci Research Articles Prairie was a dominant habitat within large portions of North America before European settlement. Conversion of prairies to farmland resulted in the loss of a large proportion of native floral resources, contributing to the decline of native pollinator populations. Efforts to reconstruct prairie could provide honey bees (Apis mellifera) a source of much-needed forage, especially in regions dominated by crop production. To what extent honey bees, which were introduced to North America by European settlers, use plants native to prairies is unclear. We placed colonies with pollen traps within reconstructed prairies in central Iowa to determine which and how much pollen is collected from prairie plants. Honey bee colonies collected more pollen from nonnative than native plants during June and July. During August and September, honey bee colonies collected more pollen from plants native to prairies. Our results suggest that honey bees’ use of native prairie plants may depend upon the seasonality of both native and nonnative plants present in the landscape. This finding may be useful for addressing the nutritional health of honey bees, as colonies in this region frequently suffer from a dearth of forage contributing to colony declines during August and September when crops and weedy plants cease blooming. These results suggest that prairie can be a significant source of forage for honey bees in the later part of the growing season in the Midwestern United States; we discuss this insight in the context of honey bee health and biodiversity conservation. Oxford University Press 2021-02-23 /pmc/articles/PMC7901588/ /pubmed/33620484 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieab001 Text en © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Zhang, Ge
St. Clair, Ashley L
Dolezal, Adam G
Toth, Amy L
O’Neal, Matthew E
North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_full North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_fullStr North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_full_unstemmed North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_short North American Prairie Is a Source of Pollen for Managed Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
title_sort north american prairie is a source of pollen for managed honey bees (hymenoptera: apidae)
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7901588/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33620484
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieab001
work_keys_str_mv AT zhangge northamericanprairieisasourceofpollenformanagedhoneybeeshymenopteraapidae
AT stclairashleyl northamericanprairieisasourceofpollenformanagedhoneybeeshymenopteraapidae
AT dolezaladamg northamericanprairieisasourceofpollenformanagedhoneybeeshymenopteraapidae
AT tothamyl northamericanprairieisasourceofpollenformanagedhoneybeeshymenopteraapidae
AT onealmatthewe northamericanprairieisasourceofpollenformanagedhoneybeeshymenopteraapidae