ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2015
Secondary metabolites in floral nectar reduce parasite infections in bumblebees.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 92 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
92 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Can floral nectars reduce transmission of Leishmania?PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Pooled it
- Multi-tissue resource characteristics and comprehensive utilization of medicinal and edible loquat (Frontiers in plant science · 2026Review
- Animal medical systems from Apis to apes: history, recent advances and future perspectives.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Secondary Compounds in Milkweed Nectar Negatively Impact Thermal Tolerance in Bumble Bees.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Dietary shifts in infected mosquitoes suggest a form of self-medication despite benefits in uninfected individuals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Nectar metabolomes contribute to pollination syndromes.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Identifying mosquito plant hosts from ingested nectar secondary metabolites.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Microsporidian parasite impairs colony fitness in bumblebees.Open biology · 2025Article
- A guide to sunflowers: floral resource nutrition for bee health and key pollination syndromes.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Review
- Article
- Article
- Diversity and Chemical Characterization of Apple (Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Phytochemical profiles of honey bees (Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Mechanisms of Pathogen and Pesticide Resistance in Honey Bees.Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Review
- Distribution of infectious and parasitic agents among three sentinel bee species across European agricultural landscapes.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Caffeine Consumption Helps Honey Bees Fight a Bacterial Pathogen.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Differential bumble bee gene expression associated with pathogen infection and pollen diet.BMC genomics · 2023Article
- Habitat quality influences pollinator pathogen prevalence through both habitat-disease and biodiversity-disease pathways.Ecology · 2023Article
- Secondary Metabolites in Nectar-Mediated Plant-Pollinator Relationships.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- An Evidence-based rationale for a North American commercial bumble bee clean stock certification program.Journal of pollination ecology · 2023Article
32 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The synthesis of secondary metabolites is a hallmark of plant defence against herbivores. These compounds may be detrimental to consumers, but can also protect herbivores against parasites. Floral nectar commonly contains secondary metabolites, but little is known about the impacts of nectar chemistry on pollinators, including bees. We hypothesized that nectar secondary metabolites could reduce bee parasite infection. We inoculated individual bumblebees with Crithidia bombi, an intestinal parasite, and tested effects of eight naturally occurring nectar chemicals on parasite population growth. Secondary metabolites strongly reduced parasite load, with significant effects of alkaloids, terpenoids and iridoid glycosides ranging from 61 to 81%. Using microcolonies, we also investigated costs and benefits of consuming anabasine, the compound with the strongest effect on parasites, in infected and uninfected bees. Anabasine increased time to egg laying, and Crithidia reduced bee survival. However, anabasine consumption did not mitigate the negative effects of Crithidia, and Crithidia infection did not alter anabasine consumption. Our novel results highlight that although secondary metabolites may not rescue survival in infected bees, they may play a vital role in mediating Crithidia transmission within and between colonies by reducing Crithidia infection intensities.
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