Location: Vegetable Crops Research
Project Number: 5090-21220-007-019-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2020
End Date: Aug 31, 2023
Objective:
Characterize the pollen microbiome within the provisions of bee larvae that exhibit differing life history strategies.
Approach:
Characterize the microbial diversity within the provisions of solitary, social, oligolectic, and polylectic bees using 16S and ITS amplicon sequencing and RNA-seq. These high-throughput sequencing approaches will be used to utilize RNA-seq methodology to identify the actively growing microbial populations as the pollen-provisions age. This approach will be used to determine which microbes (e.g., Lactobacillus and Acinetobacter) are most vital to larval bee development, relative to each larval instar. Altogether, this information will be used to determine which microbes are contributing most to healthy bee development.
