Lipidomic features of honey bee and colony health during limited supplementary feeding

Honey bee nutritional health depends on nectar and pollen, which provide the main source of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids to individual bees. During malnutrition, insect metabolism accesses fat body reserves. However, this process in bees and its repercussions at the colony level are poorly und...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Insect molecular biology 2023-12, Vol.32 (6), p.658-675
Main Authors: Castaños, Clara E, Boyce, Mary C, Bates, Tiffane, Millar, A Harvey, Flematti, Gavin, Lawler, Nathan G, Grassl, Julia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bees
Carbohydrates
Colonies
diacylglycerols
dietary supplements
Diglycerides
Fat body
Fat metabolism
Feeding
Gene expression
Honey
honey bees
Insects
Lipid metabolism
lipidomics
Lipids
Lipolysis
Malnutrition
molecular biology
Nectar
Nutrient deficiency
Physiological effects
Pollen
starvation
Sugar
sugar feeding
sugars
triacylglycerols
Triglycerides
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Summary:Honey bee nutritional health depends on nectar and pollen, which provide the main source of carbohydrates, proteins and lipids to individual bees. During malnutrition, insect metabolism accesses fat body reserves. However, this process in bees and its repercussions at the colony level are poorly understood. Using untargeted lipidomics and gene expression analysis, we examined the effects of different feeding treatments (starvation, sugar feeding and sugar + pollen feeding) on bees and correlated them with colony health indicators. We found that nutritional stress led to an increase in unsaturated triacylglycerols and diacylglycerols, as well as a decrease in free fatty acids in the bee fat body. Here, we hypothesise that stored lipids are made available through a process where unsaturations change lipid's structure. Increased gene expression of three lipid desaturases in response to malnutrition supports this hypothesis, as these desaturases may be involved in releasing fatty acyl chains for lipolysis. Although nutritional stress was evident in starving and sugar-fed bees at the colony and physiological level, only starved colonies presented long-term effects in honey production.
ISSN:0962-1075
1365-2583
DOI:10.1111/imb.12864