ArticleMolecular ecology2023
Microbiome assembly and maintenance across the lifespan of bumble bee workers.
Article in Molecular ecology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Microbial Communities Across Social Roles in Small Carpenter Bee Nests.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Carbon regime structures functional trait trajectories during primary succession in microorganisms.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- A culture collection of gut bacteria from wild bumble bees (Microbiology resource announcements · 2026Article
- Short-term temperature fluctuations show minimal effects on worker gut microbiota inFrontiers in insect science · 2026Article
- Spatial segregation and cross-kingdom interactions drive stingless bee hive microbiome assembly.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Antibiotic treatment of honey bee colonies alters early gut microbiome assembly and induces persistent dysbiosis in newly emerged workers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Glyphosate-Based Herbicides and Their Potential Impact on the Microbiota of Social Bees.Toxics · 2025Review
- A wild bumble bee shows intraspecific differences in sensitivity to multiple pesticides.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Core symbionts, age at inoculation and diet affect colonization of the bumblebee gut by a common bacterial pathogen.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Bumble bee gut microbial community structure differs between species and commercial suppliers, but metabolic potential remains largely consistent.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Exploring climate-related gut microbiome variation in bumble bees: An experimental and observational perspective.Ecology · 2025Article
- Changes in bumblebee queen gut microbiotas during and after overwintering diapause.Insect molecular biology · 2025Article
- New genomic resources inform transcriptomic responses to heavy metal toxins in the common Eastern bumble bee Bombus impatiens.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- The Gut Microbiome of Two Wild Bumble Bee Species Native of South America: Bombus pauloensis and Bombus bellicosus.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- Targeted viromes and total metagenomes capture distinct components of bee gut phage communities.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Exposure to a fungicide for a field-realistic duration does not alter bumble bee fecal microbiota structure.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Microbial associates of the elm leaf beetle: uncovering the absence of resident bacteria and the influence of fungi on insect performance.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2024Article
- Pollen Diet Diversity does not Affect Gut Bacterial Communities or Melanization in a Social and Solitary Bee Species.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- Extracellular symbiont colonizes insect during embryo development.ISME communications · 2024Article
- Bumble bee microbiota shows temporal succession and increase of lactic acid bacteria when exposed to outdoor environments.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
How a host's microbiome changes over its lifespan can influence development and ageing. As these temporal patterns have only been described in detail for a handful of hosts, an important next step is to compare microbiome succession more broadly and investigate why it varies. Here we characterize the temporal dynamics and stability of the bumble bee worker gut microbiome. Bumble bees have simple and host-specific gut microbiomes, and their microbial dynamics may influence health and pollination services. We used 16S rRNA gene sequencing, quantitative PCR and metagenomics to characterize gut microbiomes over the lifespan of Bombus impatiens workers. We also sequenced gut transcriptomes to examine host factors that may control the microbiome. At the community level, microbiome assembly is highly predictable and similar to patterns of primary succession observed in the human gut. However, at the strain level, partitioning of bacterial variants among colonies suggests stochastic colonization events similar to those observed in flies and nematodes. We also find strong differences in temporal dynamics among symbiont species, suggesting ecological differences among microbiome members in colonization and persistence. Finally, we show that both the gut microbiome and host transcriptome-including expression of key immunity genes-stabilize, as opposed to senesce, with age. We suggest that in highly social groups such as bumble bees, maintenance of both microbiomes and immunity contribute to inclusive fitness, and thus remain under selection even in old age. Our findings provide a foundation for exploring the mechanisms and functional outcomes of bee microbiome succession.
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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.