Understanding pollen specialization in mason bees: a case study of six species

Many bee species are dietary specialists and restrict their pollen foraging to a subset of the available flowers. However, the reasons for specialization-and the reasons certain plant taxa support numerous specialists-are often unclear. Many bees specialize on the plant family Asteraceae, despite evidence its pollen is a poor food for non-specialists. Here, we studied six mason bee (Osmia) species, including three Asteraceae specialists, to test whether observed pollen-usage patterns reflect larval nutritional requirements, to investigate what aspects of Asteraceae pollen make it unsuitable for non-specialists, and to understand how Asteraceae specialists tolerate their seemingly low-quality diet. We reared larval bees on host and nonhost pollen and found that Asteraceae specialists could develop on nonhost provisions, but that other bees could not survive on Asteraceae provisions. These effects did not seem related to nutritional deficiencies, since Asteraceae provisions were not amino acid deficient, and we found no consistent differences in digestive efficiency among pollen types. However, Asteraceae specialists completed more foraging flights per larva, generally collected relatively larger provisions, and produced more frass (waste) than the other species, suggesting quantitative compensation for low food quality. Toxins, deficiencies in unmeasured nutrients, or aspects of pollen grain structure might explain poor survival of non-specialists on Asteraceae provisions. Our results suggest that floral host selection by specialist bees is not related to optimizing larval nutrition. We recommend further investigation of host-selection behaviour in adult bees and of pollen digestion in larvae to better understand the evolution of bee-flower associations.