Meeting Abstract

92.6  Friday, Jan. 7  Effects of Non-insecticidal Agricultural Chemicals on Bumblebee Foraging Behavior SPRAYBERRY, J.D.H.*; RITTER, K.; Muhlenberg College; Muhlenberg College jsprayberry@muhlenberg.edu

As colony collapse disorder has garnered much media attention, we are aware of alarming declines in honey bee populations. There has also been a steady decline in bumblebee populations over the last several decades. Proposed reasons for this decline are many, including: habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, disease, and accumulation of environmental toxins (including pesticides). Our research focuses on the potential indirect effects of non-insecticidal agricultural chemicals. While it is quite logical to refrain from spraying a blueberry or tomato crop with pesticides prior to releasing bumblebees for pollination (or recruiting native populations for the job), it is less intuitive that chemicals that do not directly impact the health of individual bumblebees may have indirect effects by altering incoming sensory information. Bumblebees can use olfactory information (i.e. floral scent) to navigate to a food source. Application of chemicals such as fertilizer or fungicide could corrupt those signals and/ or decrease a bumblebee’s ability to resolve them. Bombus impatiens were trained to a linalool-scented feeder, then tested in a four chambered maze to confirm their ability to use olfactory cues alone to locate a food source. Bumblebees were then run through a maze permeated with fertilizer odor, and a maze permeated with fungicide odor. We found that bumblebees in all treatments were able to navigate to the feeder. However, bumblebees running through a fungicide permeated maze took significantly longer to locate the feeder.