Secondary Compounds in Milkweed Nectar Negatively Impact Thermal Tolerance in Bumble Bees.

ABSTRACT: Bumble bees play a critical role in ecosystem health and pollination, but recently, populations have been in decline worldwide. One way to improve outcomes is to increase floral resource availability, which improves nutrition while alleviating the effects of other stressors, such as climate. In addition to macronutrients, floral nectar can contain both beneficial as well as toxic secondary compounds, including cardenolides and alkaloids, that may impact these bees. Given that pesticides can affect heat shock pathways and thus impact heat tolerance, natural toxic compounds in nectar could also impact heat response. In this study, we investigate how the consumption of toxic secondary compounds found in nectar impacts a bee's ability to thermoregulate during heat stress events. We studied the

SUBMITTER: Shippee R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12597253 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature