Bumble Bee Foraged Pollen Analyses in Spring Time in Southern Estonia Shows Abundant Food Sources.

ABSTRACT: Agricultural landscapes usually provide higher quantities of single-source food, which are noticeably lacking in diversity and might thus have low nutrient value for bumble bee colony development. Here, in this study, we analysed the pollen foraging preferences over a large territory of a heterogeneous agricultural landscape: southern Estonia. We aimed to assess the botanical diversity of bumble bee food plants in the spring time there. We looked for preferences for some food plants or signs of food shortage that could be associated with any particular landscape features. For this purpose, we took Bombus terrestris commercial hives to the landscape, performed microscopy analyses and improved the results with the innovative DNA metabarcoding technique to determine the botanical origin of bu

SUBMITTER: Bontsutsnaja A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8538635 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature