What is it about?
Many crops depend on pollinators for seed production. Pollinators move pollen from flower to flower, plant to plant and between fields. When moving pollen, pollinators, often bees, also move the genes contained in the pollen. For example, bees can move genetically modified genes between crop fields or from a crop to populations of sexually compatible wild relatives via pollen. Our work aims at linking the foraging behavior of pollinators to the movement of pollen and genes (gene flow). We compare the behavior of three bee species and link their behaviors to their potential for gene flow.
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Why is it important?
In insect-pollinator crops, insects and mostly bees move pollen from flower to flower and are responsible for the ensuing movement of genes (gene flow). To understand how bees affect gene flow and why gene flow differs between bee species for a given crop, it is of prime importance to link their foraging behavior to their gene flow potential. This research aims at understanding how bee behavior at a local scale, bees foraging between flowers and plants, can translate into gene flow at the landscape level. Such understanding can identify the bee species with the least gene flow and suggest methods to manage pollinators to reduce gene flow.
Perspectives
The idea of linking bee behavior at a local scale to gene flow at the landscape level to better understand movement of genes among crop fields and from crop field to wild plant populations, was not well received by my agricultural colleagues when first proposed. However, evidence is accumulating to support this view, and this work was one of the first work published to link distinct bee foraging behaviors to gene flow using alfalfa as a model system. We are continuing to accumulate evidence and developing models that link various aspects of the foraging behavior of bees to gene flow for distinct bee species.
Johanne Brunet
USDA-Agricultural Research Service
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Linking the foraging behavior of three bee species to pollen dispersal and gene flow, PLoS ONE, February 2019, PLOS, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0212561.
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Resources
Patch selection by bumble bees navigating discontinuous landscapes
This work compares models of patch selection by bumble bees to determine the rules they use to select the next patch they visit.
Bee species perform distinct foraging behaviors that are best described by different movement models
Bee foraging behaviors differ between bee species and we identified the model that best described bee movement for each bee species. The fine-scale, within-patch movement of bees could not always be explained by a random movement model, and a general model of movement could not be applied to all bee species.
The decision-making process of leafcutting bees when selecting patches
To elucidate the decision-making process of a solitary bee when selecting patches, we tested against empirical data the predictions of four distinct models of patch attractiveness. These models differed in the role of patch size and isolation distance in the selection process. Alfalfa leafcutting bees do not move randomly between patches but use isolation distance and partial estimation of the resources available in a patch to guide their selection.
Contributors
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