Meeting Abstract

P1.96  Monday, Jan. 4  Effects of pollution on antennal nerve responses to plant odors in bumblebees WILSON, Meghan A.*; SPRAYBERRY, Sprayberry D.H.; Muhlenberg College; Muhlenberg College mw235224@muhlenberg.edu

Olfaction is an influential sensory system across the animal kingdom, affecting physiological responses and behavioral patterns. Prior investigations have used honeybees and bumblebees as model organisms to study invertebrate olfaction. Several of these studies have demonstrated the importance of plant olfactory signals in foraging behavior of bees. While the reasons for recent bee colony collapse disorder remain largely unexplained, it has been hypothesized that pollution may be impacting bee foraging behavior and patterns. Chemical smog from cars has been shown to change the volatile composition of floral odor cues. This alone may have a significant impact on the ability of bees to navigate to novel food sources, as the change in composition reduces the distance such olfactory cues can travel. However, multiple types of pollution could impact foraging efficacy in bees. This study is investigating how neural encoding of floral odors in the antenna of Bombus impatiens is impacted by the presence of pollutants. Current pollutants of interest are non-lethal agricultural chemicals, such as herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. Although both honeybee and bumblebee populations have been slowly declining since the 1970s, they have experienced an alarming decrease in colony numbers since the early 1990s. It seems that the dwindling of bee populations are due to a variety of factors including global trade of hives, reduction in native habitat, habitat fragmentation, pesticides, parasites, and pathogen spillover. This study investigates a pertinent epidemic, which is impacting the productivity of major food systems and total global food production.