Generalist Behavior Describes Pollen Foraging for Perceived Oligolectic and Polylectic Bees

Abstract

Native bees provide essential pollination services to cultivated and wild plants worldwide. Despite the need to conserve pollinators, the foraging patterns of native bees are poorly understood. Classic concepts of resource use have typically categorized bee species as specialists or generalists based on floral visitation patterns. While intraspecific variation in bee foraging likely depends on local land use, sex, and phenological period, among other factors, these potential drivers of floral visitation are rarely explicitly investigated. In this study, we explore the potential for inter- and intra-specific variation in floral visitation by investigating the pollen loads of two solitary, similarly sized, ground-nesting native bee species within the Apinae, Melissodes tepaneca (Cresson) and Diadasia rinconis (Cockerell), categorized as generalist and specialist based on past floral visitation studies, respectively. Our analyses reveal generalist foraging and indicate that natural habitat availability significantly drives pollen load composition for both species. The putative specialist, D. rinconis, exhibited significant differences in pollen load composition between males and females, between pan and net collection methods, and between the different phenological periods. The putative generalist, M. tepaneca, exhibited significant differences in pollen load composition between the sexes, but only in the late season. Both species exhibited significant preference levels for multiple native plant species across the study region. Given that pollen collection is essential for native bee population persistence across natural and human-dominated habitats, our findings suggest consideration of both pollen collection and floral visitation patterns to holistically describe floral usage and develop pollinator conservation strategies.

Keywords: Diadasia; Melissodes; floral community; foraging breadth; ordination.