Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
Research Article

Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees

Sydney A. Cameron, Jeffrey D. Lozier, James P. Strange, Jonathan B. Koch, Nils Cordes, Leellen F. Solter, and Terry L. Griswold
  1. aDepartment of Entomology and Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801;
  2. bUnited States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service Pollinating Insects Research Unit, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322;
  3. cDepartment of Biology, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84321; and
  4. dIllinois Natural History Survey, Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL 61820

See allHide authors and affiliations

PNAS first published January 3, 2011; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014743108
Sydney A. Cameron
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: scameron@life.illinois.edu
Jeffrey D. Lozier
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
James P. Strange
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jonathan B. Koch
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Nils Cordes
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Leellen F. Solter
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Terry L. Griswold
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  1. Edited* by Gene E. Robinson, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, and approved November 24, 2010 (received for review October 3, 2010)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Bumble bees (Bombus) are vitally important pollinators of wild plants and agricultural crops worldwide. Fragmentary observations, however, have suggested population declines in several North American species. Despite rising concern over these observations in the United States, highlighted in a recent National Academy of Sciences report, a national assessment of the geographic scope and possible causal factors of bumble bee decline is lacking. Here, we report results of a 3-y interdisciplinary study of changing distributions, population genetic structure, and levels of pathogen infection in bumble bee populations across the United States. We compare current and historical distributions of eight species, compiling a database of >73,000 museum records for comparison with data from intensive nationwide surveys of >16,000 specimens. We show that the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%, some within the last 20 y. We also show that declining populations have significantly higher infection levels of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with co-occurring populations of the stable (nondeclining) species. Higher pathogen prevalence and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming patterns of decline in North America, although cause and effect remain uncertain.

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: scameron{at}life.illinois.edu.
  • Author contributions: S.A.C., J.D.L., J.P.S., L.F.S., and T.L.G. designed research; S.A.C., J.D.L., J.P.S., J.B.K., N.C., L.F.S., and T.L.G. performed research; J.D.L., J.P.S., J.B.K., and N.C. analyzed data; and S.A.C. and J.D.L. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. HM142724–HM142729 and HM173334–HM173341).

  • ↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1014743108/-/DCSupplemental.

Next
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees
Sydney A. Cameron, Jeffrey D. Lozier, James P. Strange, Jonathan B. Koch, Nils Cordes, Leellen F. Solter, Terry L. Griswold
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2011, 201014743; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014743108

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees
Sydney A. Cameron, Jeffrey D. Lozier, James P. Strange, Jonathan B. Koch, Nils Cordes, Leellen F. Solter, Terry L. Griswold
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2011, 201014743; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014743108
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 118 (15)
Current Issue

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Smoke emanates from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant a few days after tsunami damage
Core Concept: Muography offers a new way to see inside a multitude of objects
Muons penetrate much further than X-rays, they do essentially zero damage, and they are provided for free by the cosmos.
Image credit: Science Source/Digital Globe.
Water from a faucet fills a glass.
News Feature: How “forever chemicals” might impair the immune system
Researchers are exploring whether these ubiquitous fluorinated molecules might worsen infections or hamper vaccine effectiveness.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov.
Venus flytrap captures a fly.
Journal Club: Venus flytrap mechanism could shed light on how plants sense touch
One protein seems to play a key role in touch sensitivity for flytraps and other meat-eating plants.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Kuttelvaserova Stuchelova.
Illustration of groups of people chatting
Exploring the length of human conversations
Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert explore why conversations almost never end when people want them to.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Panda bear hanging in a tree
How horse manure helps giant pandas tolerate cold
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Subscribers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Cozzarelli Prize
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates
  • FAQs
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Rights & Permissions
  • About
  • Contact

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490