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Organized Oral Session

Session: Integrating Empirical and Theoretical Approaches in Mutualistic Networks

OOS 44-3 - Plant-pollinator interactions and microbes: linking individual interactions across different interaction types

Thursday, August 18, 2022

2:00 PM – 2:15 PM EDT

Location: 520D

Presenting Author(s)

LP

Lauren Ponisio

University of Oregon, United States

Co-author(s)

HC

Hamutahl Cohen

University of Florida, United States
GS

Gordon P. Smith

Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY, USA
JZ

Jocelyn F. Zorn

University of Oregon
QM

Quinn S. McFrederick

University of California Riverside, United States

Background/Question/Methods
The microbiome and pathobiome are increasingly recognized as key determinants of how wildlife responds to global change and habitat loss, but it is unknown why microbial associations vary depending on species traits and their other species interactions. We examine if host traits and diet interaction shape microbial associations. We analyze the microbiomes and parasites of 1,686 wild bees and managed honey bees across 34 species that vary widely in phenotypic traits.

Results/Conclusions
We found that bees with more distinct traits host more distinct pathobiomes. For the microbiome, the number of plants a bee interacted with was a stronger predictor of microbial distinctness and diversity than trait distinctness or the fundamental, species-level diet breadth. We also found that microbiome and pathobiome community composition were correlated and that microbiome composition was further shaped by the community composition of the pollen collected by individual bees. Our findings demonstrate that both species-level and individual-level variation in host traits act as filters affecting the assembly of microbes in free-living organisms.