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17 September 2021 Maine's Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)—Part 2: Comparisons of a Common (Bombus ternarius) and a Rare (Bombus terricola) Species
Ronald G. Butler, Christopher Lage, Scott E. Dobrin, Joseph K. Staples, Eric Venturini, Jereme Frank, Francis A. Drummond
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Abstract

As part of a quantitative survey of Maine's bumble bee fauna (Butler et al. 2021), we compared and contrasted genetic diversity, parasite and pathogen burdens, and pesticide exposure of the relatively common Bombus ternarius Say, 1937 and the spatially rare Bombus terricola Kirby, 1837. We recorded 11 Bombus species at 40 survey sites across three Maine ecoregions, and B. ternarius was the most common species, while B. terricola was spatially rare. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling indicated that B. terricola was associated with higher elevation sites in Maine, while B. ternarius was more broadly distributed in the state. Pollinator networks constructed for each bee indicated B. ternarius foraged on more plant species than B. terricola, but that there was considerable overlap (73%) in plant species visited. Genetic diversity was greater in the spatially restricted B. terricola, whereas the widely distributed B. ternarius was characterized by greater genetic differentiation among regions. Bombus terricola had higher molecular marker levels of the microsporidian fungi Nosema spp. and the trypanosome Crithidia spp., and both species had high levels of Trypanosoma spp. exposure. No Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera, Linnaeus, 1758) viruses were detected in either species. Pesticides were not detected in pollen samples collected from workers of either species, and B. ternarius worker tissue samples exhibited only trace levels of diflubenzuron.

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Ronald G. Butler, Christopher Lage, Scott E. Dobrin, Joseph K. Staples, Eric Venturini, Jereme Frank, and Francis A. Drummond "Maine's Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)—Part 2: Comparisons of a Common (Bombus ternarius) and a Rare (Bombus terricola) Species," Environmental Entomology 50(6), 1358-1369, (17 September 2021). https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvab100
Received: 2 July 2021; Accepted: 16 August 2021; Published: 17 September 2021
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KEYWORDS
bumble bee
ecoregion
forage plant
genetic diversity
pathogen
pesticide
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