Unveiling the submerged secrets: bumblebee queens' resilience to flooding

3Citations
Citations of this article
23Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

In a previous study, an experimental oversight led to the accumulation of water filling a container housing diapausing bumblebee queens. Surprisingly, after draining the water, queens were found to be alive. This observation raises a compelling question: can bumblebee queens endure periods of inundation while overwintering underground? To address this question, we conducted an experiment using 143 common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) queens placed in soil-filled tubes and subjected to artificially induced diapause in a refrigerated unit for 7 days. Tap water was then added to the tubes and queens (n = 21 per treatment) were either maintained underwater using a plunger-like apparatus or left to float naturally on the water’s surface for varying durations (8 h, 24 h or 7 days) while remaining in overwintering conditions. Seventeen queens served as controls. After the submersion period, queens were removed from water, transferred to new tubes with soil and kept in cold storage for eight weeks. Overall, queen survival remained consistently high (89.5 ± 6.4%) across all treatments and did not differ among submersion regimes and durations. These results demonstrate the remarkable ability of diapausing B. impatiens queens to withstand submersion under water for up to one week, indicating their adaptations to survive periods of flooding in the wild.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Rondeau, S., & Raine, N. E. (2024). Unveiling the submerged secrets: bumblebee queens’ resilience to flooding. Biology Letters, 20(4). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2023.0609

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free