ArticlePloS one2013
Do honeybees shape the bacterial community composition in floral nectar?
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers.
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Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed.
- Diversity and sources of floral microbial communities.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Pollinator Visitation Alters Cranberry Flower Fungal Communities in Wisconsin Cranberry Agroecosystems.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Article
- Plant-pollinator interactions and floral and nectar traits shape the diversity of the nectar mycobiome.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Isolation, Molecular Identification, and Enzymatic Activity of Microorganisms Associated with the Gut of Stingless Bees Tetragonisca angustula Latreille, 1811.Neotropical entomology · 2025Article
- The Latitudinal Biotic Interaction Hypothesis revisited: contrasting latitudinal richness gradients in actively vs. passively accumulated interaction partners of honey bees.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Microbial generalists as keystone species: constructing core network modules in the anthosphere of twelve diverse wild plant species.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Distinct Communities and Differing Dispersal Routes in Bacteria and Fungi of Honey Bees, Honey, and Flowers.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- A quantitative survey of the blueberry (Vaccinium spp.) culturable nectar microbiome: variation between cultivars, locations, and farm management approaches.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- The role of seasonality in shaping the interactions of honeybees with other taxa.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Microbiome Interconnectedness throughout Environments with Major Consequences for Healthy People and a Healthy Planet.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2023Review
- Nectar-Inhabiting Bacteria Affect Olfactory Responses of an Insect Parasitoid by Altering Nectar Odors.Microbial ecology · 2023Article
- Secondary Metabolites in Nectar-Mediated Plant-Pollinator Relationships.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Fungicides and insecticides can alter the microbial community on the cuticle of honey bees.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Honeybees affect floral microbiome composition in a central food source for wild pollinators in boreal ecosystems.Oecologia · 2023Article
- Article
- Microbial communities associated with honey bees in Brazil and in the United States.Brazilian journal of microbiology : [publication of the Brazilian Society for Microbiology] · 2021Article
- Transitions in symbiosis: evidence for environmental acquisition and social transmission within a clade of heritable symbionts.The ISME journal · 2021Article
- The effect of plant domestication on host control of the microbiota.Communications biology · 2021Review
- The composition of bacteria in gut and beebread of stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) from tropics Yunnan, China.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Floral nectar is considered the most important reward animal-pollinated plants offer to attract pollinators. Here we explore whether honeybees, which act as pollinators, affect the composition of bacterial communities in the nectar. Nectar and honeybees were sampled from two plant species: Amygdalus communis and Citrus paradisi. To prevent the contact of nectar with pollinators, C. paradisi flowers were covered with net bags before blooming (covered flowers). Comparative analysis of bacterial communities in the nectar and on the honeybees was performed by the 454-pyrosequencing technique. No significant differences were found among bacterial communities in honeybees captured on the two different plant species. This resemblance may be due to the presence of dominant bacterial OTUs, closely related to the Arsenophonus genus. The bacterial communities of the nectar from the covered and uncovered C. paradisi flowers differed significantly; the bacterial communities on the honeybees differed significantly from those in the covered flowers' nectar, but not from those in the uncovered flowers' nectar. We conclude that the honeybees may introduce bacteria into the nectar and/or may be contaminated by bacteria introduced into the nectar by other sources such as other pollinators and nectar thieves.
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