Abstract
Poor nutrition is an important factor in global bee population declines. A significant gap in knowledge persists regarding the role of various nutrients (especially micronutrients) in honey bees. Sterols are essential micronutrients in insect diets and play a physiologically vital role as precursors of important molting hormones and building blocks of cellular membranes. Sterol requirements and metabolism in honey bees are poorly understood. Among all pollen sterols, 24-methylenecholesterol is considered the key phytosterol required by honey bees. Nurse bees assimilate this sterol from dietary sources and store it in their tissues as endogenous sterol, to be transferred to the growing larvae through brood food. This study examined the duration of replacement of such endogenous sterols in honey bees. The dietary 13C-labeled isotopomer of 24-methylenecholesterol added to artificial bee diet showed differential, progressive in vivo assimilation across various honey bee tissues. Significantly higher survival, diet consumption, head protein content and abdominal lipid content were observed in the dietary sterol-supplemented group than in the control group. These findings provide novel insights into phytosterol utilization and temporal pattern of endogenous 24-methylenecholesterol replacement in honey bees.
Highlights
Poor nutrition is one among the suite of factors cited as probable causes for honey bee colony declines over the past decade [1,2,3]
Our study focused on gaining comprehensive insights on endogenous sterol regulation in honey bees
Survival (Figure 1), head protein content (Figure 3) and abdominal lipid content (Figure 4) were all significantly higher in bees that received diets containing 13 C-labeled 24MC, when compared to bees in the control groups, even though carbohydrates and proteins were identical in the diets provided to both these groups
Summary
Poor nutrition is one among the suite of factors cited as probable causes for honey bee colony declines over the past decade [1,2,3]. The two principal dietary resources are pollen (their source of proteins, lipids phytochemicals and vitamins) and nectar (their primary source of carbohydrates and vital phytochemicals) [4,5,9,10,11,12]. Pollen is crucial because it is the only natural dietary source of important micronutrients for bees, for example: phytosterols [12]. Nurse bees consume pollen and are able to biosynthesize proteinaceous secretions from their hypopharyngeal glands. These proteinaceous secretions are progressively provisioned to the developing larvae [9,13,14]
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