Balance of nature: bees need meat (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 23, 2019, 18:35 (1918 days ago) @ David Turell

They eat microbes that help them use pollen:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/surprise-bees-need-meat/?utm_source=newslett...

"Bees are supreme pollinators because of what their babies eat. Most animals visit flowers to pilfer nectar, and they may or may not brush up against pollen and carry it to the next flower. Female bees, conversely, deliberately collect pollen, along with nectar, to feed their babes. This larval food choice is part of what defines a bee.

"Scientists have known for decades that fermenting microbes are present in pollen, but no one had seemed to consider whether they were also an important food for bees. The microbes function as an “external rumen” that breaks down parts of the pollen. It stands to reason that bees might ingest some microbes, but two researchers decided to investigate whether they eat enough to make them omnivores—and if the bees truly need those microbes to thrive.

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"For most people, the idea that microorganisms can qualify as meat is radical. In the past four years, Steffan and his colleagues, including Dharampal, have published a series of papers laying out their evidence that microbes are an important part of a variety of food webs, including those that involve bees. Their findings confirm that fungi, bacteria and other microscopic players can fit anywhere in the food web, upending our vision of predator and prey, carnivore and herbivore—and what makes a bee a bee.

"Steffan and colleagues have also shown that microbial meat is a necessary part of bees’ diet. The researchers tested a species of mason bee that lays eggs in above ground tubes that are easy to access and transport. In each tube, the mason bee lays a series of eggs, each on its own wad of pollen and nectar. The researchers had a Utah beekeeper send them a batch of tubes immediately after the bees filled them. They then took the eggs off the wads and separated males from females, and used only the male bee larvae, divided into seven groups of 12. The scientists sterilized half the pollen and then fed different mixes of sterilized and unsterilized pollen to the groups. As the percentage of sterilized pollen in the food increased, so did the larvae’s likelihood of dying. The larvae also weighed less and took longer to mature. “Microbes are a very important source of nutrients for these bees,” Dharampal says. “If you take away this critical source, or portion, of their diet, they suffer tremendously.'”

Comment: Once again this study shows how the the econiche systems of the balance of nature are very complex and intricate and show why evolution had to develop such a huge diverse bush of life.