The value of twinned pollinator-pollen metabarcoding: bumblebee pollination service is weakly partitioned within a UK grassland community.

ABSTRACT: Predicting ecological impact of declining bumblebee (Bombus) populations requires better understanding of interactions between pollinator partitioning of floral resources and plant partitioning of pollinator resources. Here, we combine Cytochrome Oxidase 1 (CO1) barcoding for bumblebee identification and rbcL metabarcoding of pollen carried by bees in three species-rich UK pastures. CO1 barcoding assigned 272 bees to eight species, with 33 individuals belonging to the cryptic Bombus lucorum complex (16 B. lucorum and 17 B. cryptarum). Seasonal bias in capture rates varied by species, with B. pratorum found exclusively in June/July and B. pascuorum more abundant in August. Pollen metabarcoding coupled with PERMANOVA and NMDS analyses revealed all bees carried several local pollen species an

SUBMITTER: Ronca S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10590402 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature