Biology subjects

Briggs, H. M.

Publications and source records attributed to Briggs, H. M..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Effect of formic acid treatment on Apis mellifera foraging behavior as assayed using nanopore metabarcoding technologies

The Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a crucial contributor to worldwide agriculture and ecological health but is experiencing wide population declines linked to Varroa mite infection. Formic Acid (FA) has been increasingly used to control for Varroa, yet its effects on A. mellifera hives, particularly the impact it might have on their foraging preferences, remain unclear. In this study, we used a combination of pollen DNA metabarcoding with real-time nanopore sequencing to assess how FA treatment influences A. mellifera foraging preferences. DNA sequencing was performed on pollen samples from six University of Utah campus honeybee hives separated into FA and control treatments. Samples were collected before, during, and after FA application. We amplified trnL, a chloroplast DNA region useful for plant identification using portable sequencers from Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT). We detected a significant difference in foraging composition between FA-treated and control hives at the end of the experiment. Control hives foraged from a more diverse array of plant genera. We also found individual hives have unique foraging preferences independent of treatment. These findings suggest that FA treatment can have an impact on A. mellifera foraging behavior. The magnitude of FA impact, however, on hive foraging repertoire remains unclear. Pollen DNA metabarcoding with nanopore technology is an effective method for analyzing bee foraging patterns and holds significant potential for advancing ecological research on pollination health.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Investigating Honey Bee Pollen Foraging Patterns Across a Season Using DNA Metabarcoding

The western honey bee, or Apis mellifera, is a vital pollinator, essential for both ecosystems and agriculture worldwide. As human influences on these bees become more pronounced, understanding their pollen foraging behavior is increasingly important. Pollen provides crucial nutrients for A. mellifera such as protein and lipids that are necessary for hive health and prosperity. Pollen DNA metabarcoding allows for the longitudinal analysis of the floral sources of corbicular (bee-collected) pollen. In this study we employ the use of metabarcoding and Oxford Nanopore Sequencing technology to analyze the floral composition of pollen samples collected on a weekly basis from two closely related hives. In total, we identified 74 distinct plant taxa (at the genus level) between the two hives. Although both hives had equivalent values of taxonomic richness and diversity, the majority of taxa identified were unique to the individual hives. This indicates a large degree of variation in pollen foraging despite the hives relative proximity. In addition to this interhive analysis, we also analyzed changes in pollen origin of a single hive across the course of five months. We identified 59 distinct plant taxa within samples from this hive whose presence and relative abundance differ drastically on a weekly basis with no taxa being present in all samples across the observed time period. In addition, even though there was a median of 8 to 9 taxa detected in each sample, each sample was composed primarily of 1 to 2 taxa indicating a degree of foraging preference that changes on a regular basis. Further quantitative and qualitative comparisons completed in this study demonstrate the degree of variation in pollen foraging patterns both throughout the season and between hives.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Not all interactions are positive: testing how antagonistic interactions impact the robustness of plant-pollinator networks.

Given ongoing pollinator declines, it is important to understand the dynamics of linked extinctions of plants driven by pollinator extinctions. Topological robustness models focused on this question suggest relatively high robustness of plant species to pollinator species extinctions. Still, existing robustness models typically assume that all interactions in plant-pollinator networks are positive, which is clearly not always the case. For example, many pollinators remove floral resources with-out transferring pollen, or even damage floral structures in the case of nectar robbing. Here we introduce antagonistic interactions into plant-pollinator networks and assess the resilience of plant communities to pollinator species losses. Incorporating antagonistic interactions leads to lower network robustness, i.e. an increased rate of plant species loss (as compared to networks with only mutualistic interactions) in empirical plant-pollinator networks. In conjunction with extinction order, the addition of increasingly antagonistic interactions was idiosyncratic in that it did not always magnify the effects of extinction order across the three networks. These results underscore the importance of considering the full spectrum of interaction outcomes when assessing robustness to coextinctions in plant-pollinator networks, as well as other ecological systems.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2017

Variation in context dependent foraging behavior across pollinators

Pollinator foraging behavior has direct consequences for plant reproduction and has been implicated in driving floral trait evolution. Exploring the degree to which pollinators exhibit flexibility in foraging behavior will add to a mechanistic understanding of how pollinators can impact selection on plant traits. Although plants have evolved suites of floral traits to attract pollinators, flower color is a particularly important aspect of the floral display. Some pollinators show strong innate color preference, but many pollinators display flexibility in preference due to learning associations between rewards and color, or due to variable perception of color in different environments or plant communities. This study examines the flexibility in flower color preference of two groups of native butterfly pollinators under natural field conditions. Our study reveals that pipevine swallowtails and skippers, the predominate pollinators of the two native Texas Phlox species, display distinct patterns of color preferences across different contexts. Pipevine swallowtails exhibit highly flexible color preferences and likely utilize other floral traits to make foraging decisions. In contrast, skippers have consistent color preferences and likely use flower color as a primary cue for foraging. As a result of this variation in color preference flexibility, the two pollinator groups impose concordant selection on flower color in some contexts but discordant selection in other contexts. This variability could have profound implications for how flower traits respond to pollinator-mediated selection. Our findings suggest that studying dynamics of behavior in natural field conditions is important for understanding plant-pollinator interactions.

animal behavior and cognition↗