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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 2, 2025

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Microbiota of Attine Ants' Gardens: Visualizing a Microbial Landscape by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Published on: October 4, 2024

Plant-pollinator network architecture does not impact intraspecific microbiome variability.

Gordon P Smith^1,2, Hamutahl Cohen^2,3, Jocelyn F Zorn²

¹Department of Biology, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.

Molecular Ecology

|February 28, 2024

Summary

Bee microbiome composition is influenced by flower visits, but network structure does not significantly alter microbial transmission. This suggests frequent microbial transfer at flowers, yet host gut filtering may limit network effects on bee microbiomes.

Keywords:

intraspecific variation microbial transmission microbiomes plant–pollinator network

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Area of Science:

Ecology
Microbiology
Behavioral Ecology

Background:

Individual interactions with food resources can influence microbial transmission.
Forager network structure may mediate community-scale microbial transmission opportunities.
The balance between individual barriers and community opportunities for microbial transfer is not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To determine if individual floral visits predict bee microbiome composition.
To investigate if plant-bee network structure influences the homogenization of bee microbiomes.
To assess how community-scale transmission opportunities affect microbial variability within bee populations.

Main Methods:

Examined bee-flower and bee-microbial interactions of over 1000 individual bees.
Analyzed pollen community composition carried by bees.
Assessed microbiome composition in relation to individual floral visits and network structure.

Main Results:

Pollen community composition correlated with microbiome composition at some sites, indicating microbial transmission at flowers.
Microbiome variability did not differ between networks with high and low microbial transfer opportunities.
Bee microbiomes in asymmetric networks showed similar variability to those in more evenly linked networks.

Conclusions:

Microbial transmission at flowers is frequent and detectable at the community level.
Community network structure did not significantly alter the dynamics of microbial transmission among bees.
Host gut filtering may play a role in moderating the impact of network structure on bee microbiomes.