Flowers and Wild Megachilid Bees Share Microbes

Quinn S. McFrederick, Jason M. Thomas, John L. Neff, Hoang Q. Vuong, Kaleigh A. Russell, Amanda R. Hale, Ulrich G. Mueller

Transmission pathways have fundamental influence on microbial symbiont persistence and evolution. For example, the core gut microbiome of honey bees is transmitted socially and via hive surfaces, but some non-core bacteria associated with honey bees are also found on flowers, and these bacteria may therefore be transmitted indirectly between bees via flowers. Here, we test whether multiple flower and wild megachilid bee species share microbes, which would suggest that flowers may act as hubs of microbial transmission. We sampled the microbiomes of flowers (either bagged to exclude bees or open to allow bee visitation), adults, and larvae of seven megachilid bee species and their pollen provisions. We found a Lactobacillus operational taxonomic unit (OTU) in all samples but in the highest relative and absolute abundances in adult and larval bee guts and pollen provisions. The presence of the same bacterial types in open and bagged flowers, pollen provisions, and bees supports the hypothesis that flowers act as hubs of transmission of these bacteria between bees. The presence of bee-associated bacteria in flowers that have not been visited by bees suggests that these bacteria may also be transmitted to flowers via plant surfaces, the air, or minute insect vectors such as thrips. Phylogenetic analyses of nearly full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the Lactobacillus OTU dominating in flower- and megachilid-associated microbiomes is monophyletic, and we propose the name Lactobacillus micheneri sp. nov. for this bacterium.