Assessing potential impact of gut microbiome disruptions on the environmental stress resilience of indoor-reared Bombus terrestris

Abstract

Bumblebees are crucial for both natural ecosystems and agriculture, but their decline in distribution and abundance over the past decade is alarming. The global importance of bumblebees in natural ecosystems and agricultural food production cannot be overstated. However, the reported decline over the past decade has led to a surge of interest in understanding and addressing bumblebee population decline. Hence, we aimed to detect disruptions in the gut microbiome of male and worker bumblebees reared indoor and outdoor to assess potential resilience to environmental stress. Using the Illumina MiSeq platform for 16s rRNA amplicon sequencing, we analyzed the gut microbiome of male and worker bees that were raised indoors (designated as the IM and IW group) and those that were raised outdoors (also designated as the OM and OW group). Our results show presence of core bacteria Neisseriaceae, Orbaceae, Lactobacillaceae and Bifidobacteriaceae from indoor reared worker bees. However, a higher abundance of Bifidobacterium and absence of Fructobacillus from indoor reared worker bees was also observed. Indoor-reared male bees had lower diversity and fewer observed OTUs compared to outdoor-reared male bees. Additionally, the relative abundance of Actinobacteriota, Bacteroidota, and Firmicutes was significantly lower in indoor-reared males, while Proteobacteria was significantly increased. Despite this, we did not observe any dysbiosis in the gut microbiota of indoor-reared bumblebees when comparing the role of the gut symbionts among the groups. These results suggest that indoor-reared Bombus terrestris may be resilient to environmental stress when used as outdoor pollinators.