How do wild bees respond to catastrophic floods?
Natural disturbances such as flooding, drought, and wildfire, can promote biodiversity by creating habitat for new types of plants and animals. Disturbances that occur too frequently or too severely could make it difficult for the land to recover, which will lead to a decline in the types of plants and animals in an area. Current climate models project an increase in both the frequency and severity of large storms in response the rising global temperature. In 2013, a large flood coined by many as a 500-year flood hit Colorado’s Front Range. This flood provided a rare opportunity to study how large floods impact wild bees. Wild bees are important animals in natural areas as the pollinate the surrounding plants. Pollination is when pollen is carried from one plant to another, which is a process necessary for most plants to produce new seeds. Large storms like the 2013 flood often rip vegetation out from land near creeks and rivers and pollinators help speed up the recovery process of the plants. Unfortunately, little is known about how pollinators respond to floods. In 2012, one year before the flood, the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History conducted a comprehensive survey of the wild bees along the St. Vrain Greenway, an 8-mile long urban trail following an east-west riparian corridor in Longmont, Colorado. With a rare opportunity to assess the pre- and post- flood wild bee community, we resampled in 2014 and again in the field season of 2020. Preliminary analysis shows a decline in diversity of bee genera and an improvement in 2020 seven years post-flood. This research provides crucial baseline data about changes in wild bee diversity in response to catastrophic storms and has implications for restoration efforts following large disturbance events.
Check out my virtual Entomological Society of America talk with preliminary data here.
Check out my virtual Entomological Society of America talk with preliminary data here.
The extent of the 2013 flood in Longmont, Colorado
Broodless Bumble Bee Queens
Bumble bees colonies are domesticated to provide commercial crop pollination. Recent efforts to commercially rear locally native species to provide these pollination services has revealed that little is known about the parasites and pathogens of these species or about reproductive biology in bumble bees as a whole. Our work assessed mating status, ovary development, and presence of several parasites and pathogens in wild-caught bumble bee queens who failed to initiate a nest in captivity. Our recently published work (Mullins et al. 2020) revealed that the presence of several parasites are not linked to failed nest initiation in two bumble bee species (Bombus huntii and B. vosnesenskii).
If you are interested in the methods for the multiplex PCR used in this research, here are the published supplementary materials developed by Dr. Amber Tripodi.
If you are interested in the methods for the multiplex PCR used in this research, here are the published supplementary materials developed by Dr. Amber Tripodi.
Image of a PCR gel used to diagnose pathogens (Nosema, Crithidia, and Apicystis) in bumble bee queens.
