ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Pollen-borne microbes shape bee fitness.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 116 citations in OpenAlex.
- DNA metabarcoding reveals key floral resources for native pollinators in post-fire landscapes.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Hidden Microbiota Inhabiting in Pollen Reserves of Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) From Amazonas Region Revealed by DNA Metabarcoding.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Article
- Wild bees occupy temporally stable pollen nutritional niches.Oecologia · 2026Article
- Floral microbes provisioned by Osmia lignaria establish in larval food stores, but do not affect bee development or survival.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Honey Bees Reduce Pollen Viability While Foraging.Insects · 2026Article
- Experimental evidence for the absence of a functional gut microbiome in the solitary bee Megachile tosticauda.FEMS microbiology letters · 2026Article
- Differential responses of crop pollen microbial communities to insect visitation and host identity: fungi are more sensitive than bacteria.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Dietary modulation of gut microbiota and functional enzymes in savannah honey bees (Apis mellifera scutellata Lepeletier).Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2025Article
- Pollen diet, more than geographic distance, shapes provision microbiome composition in two species of cavity-nesting bees.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Solitary Bees Acquire and Deposit Bacteria via Flowers: Testing the Environmental Transmission Hypothesis UsingEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- The bacterial community associated with the solitary resin bee Megachile tosticauda throughout its life cycle.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- The microorganisms and metabolome of Pinus radiata Pollen.Environmental microbiome · 2024Article
- Environmentally acquired gut-associated bacteria are not critical for growth and survival in a solitary bee,Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Acute toxicity of the fungicide captan to honey bees and mixed evidence for synergism with the insecticide thiamethoxam.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Pollen products collected from honey bee hives experiencing minor stress have altered fungal communities and reduced antimicrobial properties.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- Contribution of Microbiota to Bioactivity Exerted by Bee Bread.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- A New Isolated Fungus and Its Pathogenicity forMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- Shotgun Metagenomics Reveals Minor Micro"International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Pollen Diet Diversity does not Affect Gut Bacterial Communities or Melanization in a Social and Solitary Bee Species.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- Is the plant microbiome transmitted from pollen to seeds?Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Teeming within pollen provisions are diverse communities of symbiotic microbes, which provide a variety of benefits to bees. Microbes themselves may represent a major dietary resource for developing bee larvae. Despite their apparent importance in sustaining bee health, evidence linking pollen-borne microbes to larval health is currently lacking. We examined the effects of microbe-deficient diets on the fitness of larval mason bees. In a series of diet manipulations, microbe-rich maternally collected pollen provisions were replaced with increasing fractions of sterilized, microbe-deficient pollen provisions before being fed to developing larvae. Convergent findings from amino acid and fatty acid trophic biomarker analyses revealed that larvae derived a substantial amount of nutrition from microbial prey and occupied a significantly higher trophic position than that of strict herbivores. Larvae feeding on increasingly sterile diets experienced significant adverse effects on growth rates, biomass and survivorship. When completely deprived of pollen-borne microbes, larvae consistently exhibited marked decline in fitness. We conclude that microbes associated with aged pollen provisions are central to bee health, not only as nutritional mutualists, but also as a major dietary component. In an era of global bee decline, the conservation of such bee-microbe interactions may represent an important facet of pollinator protection strategies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.