EAGER: Nutritional landscapes, physiological ecology & mechanistic drivers of bumble bee population dynamics

蜜蜂作为各种植物物种的传粉者发挥着重要作用，包括许多最有营养的人类粮食作物。然而，我们才刚刚开始了解蜜蜂种群如何反过来受到它们从开花植物的花粉和花蜜中获得的营养物质的限制。该项目研究野生熊蜂种群如何受到花卉资源可用性的影响，重点是蜜蜂对食物资源特别敏感的生命阶段（春季筑巢）。将采用实地考察和实验室实验相结合的方法，前者侧重于野生蜜蜂种群动态，后者旨在更直接地测试食物供应如何影响蜜蜂的生存和繁殖。在西班牙裔服务和少数民族服务机构的本科生将参与研究，并得到指导，以支持他们的科学事业。实地研究将在内华达州山脉进行，并将制作国家公园和森林小册子，向公众和土地管理人员介绍熊蜂、它们的营养需求和特定地点的花卉资源。该项目将揭示本地传粉者面临的具体营养挑战，以揭示促进传粉者和农业可持续性的最有效途径。种群动态的营养调节是生态学的一个中心焦点，但这种调节的性质可能很难阐明，因为生物及其食物资源往往在空间和时间上高度可变。该项目使用野生大黄蜂的塞拉利昂内华达州山脉作为一个模型系统，以确定如何授粉种群的花卉奖励（花蜜和花粉）的营养物质的可用性进行调节。该项目使用受控实验室实验，操纵食物的可用性，并产生生命率反应，以参数化熊蜂的人口模型。同时，它检查野生蜜蜂种群动态（从基因组数据推断）和花卉资源的可用性之间的关系，以评估模型的预测。这些组成部分将共同推进整合营养和生理生态学的总体目标，以揭示在波动的资源景观中蜜蜂种群动态的驱动因素。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Bees play essential roles as pollinators of a wide variety of plant species, including for many of the most nutritious human food crops. However, we are only beginning to understand how, in turn, bee populations are limited by the availability of nutrients they obtain from pollen and nectar from flowering plants. This project examines how wild bumble bee populations are impacted by floral resource availability, focusing on a life stage (spring nesting) wherein bees are particularly sensitive to food resources. A combination of fieldwork and laboratory experiments will be employed, with the former focusing on wild bee population dynamics and the latter designed to more directly test how food availability impacts bee survival and reproduction. Undergraduate students at a Hispanic Serving and Minority Serving Institution will participate in the research and be mentored to support their careers in science. The field research will take place in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and brochures for National Parks and Forests will be generated to inform the public and land managers about bumble bees, their nutritional needs, and site-specific floral resources. This project will reveal the specific nutritional challenges faced by native pollinators in order to reveal the most effective avenues for promoting pollinators and agricultural sustainability. Nutritional regulation of population dynamics is a central focus of ecology, and yet the nature of this regulation can be difficult to elucidate because organisms and their food resources are often highly variable across space and time. This project uses wild bumble bees of the Sierra Nevada Mountains as a model system for identifying how pollinator populations are regulated by the availability of nutrients from floral rewards (nectar and pollen). The project uses controlled laboratory experiments that manipulate food availability, and resulting vital rate responses, to parameterize a demographic model for bumble bees. In parallel, it examines relationships between wild bee population dynamics (inferred from genomic data) and floral resource availability to assess predictions from the model. Together, these components will advance the overall goal of integrating nutritional and physiological ecology to reveal the drivers of bee population dynamics across fluctuating resource landscapes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.