How does climate change impact social bees and bee sociality?

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Climate Change Science

Background:

• Climate influences social behaviors in animals, and sociality affects climate responses.
• Interactions between climate and sociality are critical for predicting animal vulnerability and resilience to climate change.
• Bees exhibit diverse social states, making them a key taxon for studying climate-sociality interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review how sociality mediates vulnerability to climate change in bees.
• To predict how climate change may impact the social organization of bees.
• To identify traits conferring resilience and forecast shifts in bee social phenotypes.

Main Methods:

• Literature review synthesizing research on climate factors and social behaviors.
• Analysis of functional traits (e.g., sociality, diet breadth) in relation to environmental change.
• Generation of predictions on the impact of climate change on bee social evolution.

Main Results:

• Sociality mediates bee vulnerability and resilience to climate change through various traits.
• Climate change can alter the costs and benefits of social living, impacting social organization.
• Warming temperatures may increase eusocial nesting by accelerating development and expanding brood-rearing windows.

Conclusions:

• Climate change impacts on bee social evolution will be complex and context-dependent.
• Shifts in abiotic and biotic selective environments will alter social living dynamics.
• These changes have cascading effects on populations, communities, and ecosystems.