Meeting Abstract
Many bees collect pollen via sonication, or buzz-pollination, during which they grasp the anthers of a flower and vibrate at high frequencies to remove pollen. Understanding the behavioral and mechanistic requirements of buzz-pollination may provide insight into the evolution and ecology of this plant-bee mutualism. Here we compare buzz-pollination in two bees that fill similar niches on different continents – in Australia, Amegilla murrayensis (blue banded bee), and in North America, Bombus impatiens (bumblebee). We compare buzzes of both species collecting pollen from flowers of Solanum lycopersicum (cherry tomatoes). We hypothesized that both bee species would employ similar behaviors to release pollen – grasping the anthers with the mandibles and vibrating while curling the ventral side of their body around the anther pores. We also hypothesized that buzz frequency, buzz length, and the time spent on a single flower would differ between the bee species, due to differences in body size. We found that the behavior of A. murrayensis is unique from previously reported buzz-pollination mechanisms. Instead of grasping the anthers with its mandibles and shaking them as most bees do, A. murrayensis taps the anthers with the ventral portion of its head at high frequencies to release pollen. We found that A. murrayensis buzzes at higher frequencies during pollination on S. lycopersicum flowers and flaps its wings at higher frequencies during flight, supporting our hypothesis. We found no difference in the length of a single buzz between the two bee species, but A. murrayensis visited individual flowers for a shorter period of time than B. impatiens, as B. impatiens generally buzzed the flower several times before departing.
