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Native solitary bee reproductive success depends on early season precipitation and host plant richness

  • Population ecology – original research
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Abstract

Spring-emerging bees depend upon the synchronized bloom times of angiosperms that provide pollen and nectar for offspring. The emergence of such bees and bloom times are linked to weather but can be phenologically mismatched, which could limit bee developmental success. However, it remains unclear how such phenologically asynchrony could affect spring-emerging pollinators, and especially for those that forage over a relatively short time period. We examined the relationship between weather and host plant selection on the native spring-foraging solitary bee, Osmia lignaria, across 3 years at urban and rural sites in and around Seattle, Washington, USA. We used community science weather data to test the effects of precipitation, wind, and temperature on O. lignaria oviposition and developmental success. We also collected pollen data over two distinct foraging periods, early and late spring, and used Next-Generation Sequencing to identify plant genera from pollen. Among the weather variables, precipitation during the early foraging period adversely affected larval developmental success and adult bee emergence success, but not oviposition. Using DNA metabarcoding, we observed that increases in the number of plant genera in pollen increased adult emergence in both foraging periods, but not oviposition or larval development. We also observed that foraging bees consistently visited certain genera during each foraging period, especially Acer, Salix, and Rubus. However, pollen collected by O. lignaria over different years varied in the number of total genera visited, highlighting the importance of multi-year studies to ascertain bee foraging preferences and its link to developmental success.

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Data availability

Data are archived through the University of Washington Research Works Archive: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/

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Acknowledgements

We thank Amin Amos for his help in processing the weather data. We are grateful to Drs. Jonathan Bakker, Berry Brosi, and Julie Combs (University of Washington), and Quinn McFrederick (University of California, Riverside) for technical advice. This research was conducted by LRW in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree from the University of Washington.

Funding

This study was supported by USDA-NIFA McIntire Stennis Cooperative Forestry Program-Accession No. 1012774 (to PCT) and the University of Washington Hall Conservation Genetics Fund (to LRW).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, 3715 W. Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Lila R. Westreich & Patrick C. Tobin

  2. DNAnexus Inc., 1975 El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA, 94041, USA

    Samuel T. Westreich

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  1. Lila R. Westreich
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  2. Samuel T. Westreich
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LRW and PCT conceived and designed the experiments. LRW performed the experiments. LRW, STW, and PCT analyzed the data. LRW wrote the manuscript; other authors provided editorial advice.

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Correspondence to Patrick C. Tobin.

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Communicated by Riccardo Bommarco.

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Westreich, L.R., Westreich, S.T. & Tobin, P.C. Native solitary bee reproductive success depends on early season precipitation and host plant richness. Oecologia 201, 965–978 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05354-5

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