TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kaluza, Benjamin F.
A1  - Wallace, Helen M.
A1  - Heard, Tim A.
A1  - Minden, Vanessa
A1  - Klein, Alexandra
A1  - Leonhardt, Sara D.
T1  - Social bees are fitter in more biodiverse environments
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - Bee population declines are often linked to human impacts, especially habitat and biodiversity loss, but empirical evidence is lacking. To clarify the link between biodiversity loss and bee decline, we examined how floral diversity affects (reproductive) fitness and population growth of a social stingless bee. For the first time, we related available resource diversity and abundance to resource (quality and quantity) intake and colony reproduction, over more than two years. Our results reveal plant diversity as key driver of bee fitness. Social bee colonies were fitter and their populations grew faster in more florally diverse environments due to a continuous supply of food resources. Colonies responded to high plant diversity with increased resource intake and colony food stores. Our findings thus point to biodiversity loss as main reason for the observed bee decline.
KW  - biodiversity
KW  - ecosystem services
KW  - social bees
KW  - fitness
Y1  - 2018
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-177231
VL  - 8
IS  - 12353
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Trinkl, Moritz
A1  - Kaluza, Benjamin F.
A1  - Wallace, Helen
A1  - Heard, Tim A.
A1  - Keller, Alexander
A1  - Leonhardt, Sara D.
T1  - Floral Species Richness Correlates with Changes in the Nutritional Quality of Larval Diets in a Stingless Bee
JF  - Insects
N2  - Bees need food of appropriate nutritional quality to maintain their metabolic functions. They largely obtain all required nutrients from floral resources, i.e., pollen and nectar. However, the diversity, composition and nutritional quality of floral resources varies with the surrounding environment and can be strongly altered in human-impacted habitats. We investigated whether differences in plant species richness as found in the surrounding environment correlated with variation in the floral diversity and nutritional quality of larval provisions (i.e., mixtures of pollen, nectar and salivary secretions) composed by the mass-provisioning stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria (Apidae: Meliponini). We found that the floral diversity of larval provisions increased with increasing plant species richness. The sucrose and fat (total fatty acid) content and the proportion and concentration of the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid decreased, whereas the proportion of the omega-3 fatty acid linolenic acid increased with increasing plant species richness. Protein (total amino acid) content and amino acid composition did not change. The protein to fat (P:F) ratio, known to affect bee foraging, increased on average by more than 40% from plantations to forests and gardens, while the omega-6:3 ratio, known to negatively affect cognitive performance, decreased with increasing plant species richness. Our results suggest that plant species richness may support T. carbonaria colonies by providing not only a continuous resource supply (as shown in a previous study), but also floral resources of high nutritional quality.
KW  - floral resources
KW  - plant-insect interactions
KW  - nutrition
KW  - biodiversity
KW  - bee decline
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-200605
SN  - 2075-4450
VL  - 11
IS  - 2
ER  -