Abstract
Studying the pollen preferences of introduced bees allows us to investigate how species use host-plants when establishing in new environments. Osmia cornifrons is a solitary bee introduced into North America from East Asia for pollination of Rosaceae crops such as apples and cherries. We investigated whether O. cornifrons (i) more frequently collected pollen from host-plant species they coevolved with from their geographic origin, or (ii) prefer host-plant species of specific plant taxa independent of origin. To address this question, using pollen metabarcoding, we examined the identity and relative abundance of pollen in larval provisions from nests located in different landscapes with varying abundance of East-Asian and non-Asian plant species. Our results show that O. cornifrons collected more pollen from plant species from their native range. Plants in the family Rosaceae were their most preferred pollen hosts, but they differentially collected species native to East Asia, Europe, or North America depending on the landscape. Our results suggest that while O. cornifrons frequently collect pollen of East-Asian origin, the collection of pollen from novel species within their phylogenetic familial affinities is common and can facilitate pollinator establishment. This phylogenetic preference highlights the effectiveness of O. cornifrons as crop pollinators of a variety of Rosaceae crops from different geographic origins. Our results imply that globalization of non-native plant species may ease the naturalization of their coevolved pollinators outside of their native range.
Highlights
The majority of wild and crop plant species require insect-mediated pollination for reproduction [1]
We further explored whether O. corniforns more frequently collected pollen from East-Asian Rosaceae species versus North American or European Rosaceae species
Our results reveal that O. cornifrons collect significant amounts of pollen from Rosaceae host-plants from their native East-Asian geographic origin even in naturalized habitats where alternative host-plants are abundant
Summary
The majority of wild and crop plant species require insect-mediated pollination for reproduction [1]. Relationships between pollinators and their host-plant species in their native geographic ranges have evolved over thousands to millions of years, leading to coevolved (morphological, behavioural, chemical and physiological) traits [3,4]. Efficient crop pollination may result from historical relationships between wild relatives of crops and their native pollinating species [5]. Honeybees are not efficient pollinators for many crops (e.g. due to mechanical mismatches of the bee and flower reproductive parts, or lack of sufficient movement between conspecific plants; [7,8,9]). A logical action to maximize pollination services in agroecosystems is to introduce coevolved crop pollinators into new geographic regions where the crop is cultivated [10,11,12,13]. The introduction of pollinator species into new habitats poses risks such as competition with native pollinators, pollination of invasive plant species (other than the intended crop) and importation of novel pathogens [14,15,16,17,18]
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