Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) are ecologically and economically important pollinating insects and nutritional stress is one of the most significant factors causing their decline. However, our knowledge of the nutritional requirements of bumblebees is largely limited to just a small number of species that can be easily reared in the laboratory, so there is an important need to understand the nutritional requirements of a greater range of bumblebee species. In particular, the long-tongued, pocket maker species that have been intractable to laboratory rearing, yet are often of greatest conservation concern. Here, we compare the development and success of incipient colonies in two species of pocket maker bumblebees (B. pascuorum and B. hortorum) when fed either a less diverse or more diverse pollen diet. Our results show that both diets were sufficiently good for queens of both species to rear workers, but they performed significantly better for some variables on the less diverse diet. Our findings support previous work that suggests that a less diverse diet can be as good as a highly diverse mix in some respects. We also observed significant differences between species, demonstrating why we must not rely only on one or two model species to understand the effects of nutritional stress on bumblebee communities.

中文翻译：

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实验室饮食对两种长舌大黄蜂种群初期成功的影响

大黄蜂 (Bombus spp.) 是生态和经济上重要的授粉昆虫，营养压力是导致其数量下降的最重要因素之一。然而，我们对大黄蜂营养需求的了解很大程度上仅限于少数可以在实验室中轻松饲养的物种，因此非常需要了解更多大黄蜂物种的营养需求。尤其是那些难以在实验室饲养的长舌、袖珍型物种，但往往是最大的保护问题。在这里，我们比较了两种口袋大黄蜂（B. pascuorum 和 B. hortorum）在喂食较少种类或较多种类的花粉饮食时的初始菌落的发育和成功。我们的结果表明，两种饮食对于两种物种的女王来说都足以养育工蚁，但在不太多样化的饮食中，它们对某些变量的表现要好得多。我们的研究结果支持之前的工作，即在某些方面，较少多样化的饮食与高度多样化的饮食一样好。我们还观察到物种之间的显着差异，证明了为什么我们不能仅仅依靠一两个模型物种来了解营养压力对大黄蜂群落的影响。