Sterol addition during pollen collection by bees: another possible strategy to balance nutrient deficiencies?
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Original article
Sterol addition during pollen collection by bees: another possible strategy to balance nutrient deficiencies? Maryse VANDERPLANCK1,2 , Pierre-Laurent ZERCK1 , Georges LOGNAY3 , Denis MICHEZ1 1
Laboratory of Zoology, Research Institute for Biosciences, University of Mons, 20 Place du Parc, 7000, Mons, Belgium 2 CNRS, UMR 8198 - Evo-Eco-Paleo, Univ. Lille, F-59000, Lille, France 3 Analytical Chemistry, Agro Bio Chem Department, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech University of Liège, 2 Passage des Déportés, 5030, Gembloux, Belgium Received 10 July 2019 – Revised 2 March 2020 – Accepted 30 March 2020
Abstract – Sterols are essential nutrients for bees which are thought to obtain them exclusively from pollen. It is possible that variability in pollen sterol content shapes pollinator-flower relationships, as bee species require the physiological capacity or behavioral adaptations to cope with unfavorable sterolic composition of pollen. One behavioral adaptation used by generalist bees to avoid deficiencies is the mixing of different pollen types from multiple botanical families to achieve an optimal nutritional balance. However, a possible strategy that has never been investigated is the specific addition of nutrients by adult bees to pollen during foraging trips. Here, we analyzed the pollen sterols from 48 plant species and assessed their relation with the level of bee dietary specialization. We also investigated whether sterol addition or modification might occur during pollen collection by comparing handand bee-collected pollen for nine bee species. Our results show that sterolic composition tends to be similar within the same plant family, but there was no impact of overall relatedness. For pollen sterol content and bee specialization, pollen from plants used by specialist bees displayed more uncommon sterols than pollen from plants used by generalist bees. In addition, a sterol addition behavior may occur during foraging trips and could be considered a possible strategy to balance nutrient deficiencies. Such behavior was unrelated to bee specialization as this phenomenon was observed in both the generalist Apis mellifera and specialist Dasypoda hirtipes , suggesting that sterols might constitute a physiological constraint even for specialist species. pollen / phytosterols / bees / foraging behavior
1. INTRODUCTION Pollen and nectar constitute the major food sources for most bee species (Danforth et al. 2013). Nectar is the main carbohydrate supply and shows a relatively simple chemical Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-020-00764-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Corresponding author: M. Vanderplanck, [email protected] Maryse Vanderplanck and Pierre-Laurent Zerck contributed equally to this work. Handling Editor: James Nieh
composition (Nicolson and Thornburg 2007), whereas pollen is much more chemically complex and variable, containing in proteins, amino acids, vitamins, and lipids (
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