Dominant bee species and floral abundance drive parasite temporal dynamics in plant-pollinator communities.

Pollinator reductions can leave communities less diverse and potentially at increased risk of infectious diseases. Species-rich plant and bee communities have high species turnover, making the study of disease dynamics challenging. To address how temporal dynamics shape parasite prevalence in plant and bee communities, we screened >5,000 bees and flowers over an entire growing season for five common bee microparasites (Nosema ceranae, Nosema bombi, Crithidia bombi, Crithidia expoeki and neogregarines). Over 110 bee species and 89 flower species were screened, revealing that 42% of bee species (12.2% individual bees) and 70% of flower species (8.7% individual flowers) had at least one parasite in or on them, respectively. Some common flowers (for example, Lychnis flos-cuculi) harboured multiple parasite species whilst others (for example, Lythrum salicaria) had few. Significant temporal variation of parasite prevalence in bees was linked to bee diversity, bee and flower abundance and community composition. Specifically, we found that bee communities had the highest prevalence late in the season, when social bees (Bombus spp. and Apis mellifera) were dominant and bee diversity was lowest. Conversely, prevalence on flowers was lowest late in the season when floral abundance was highest. Thus turnover in the bee community impacted community-wide prevalence, and turnover in the plant community impacted when parasite transmission was likely to occur at flowers. These results imply that efforts to improve bee health will benefit from the promotion of high floral numbers to reduce transmission risk, maintaining bee diversity to dilute parasites and monitoring the abundance of dominant competent hosts. Screening >100 bee and >80 flower species for five common microparasites over 26 weeks, the authors show that parasite prevalence increases in bees toward the end of the growing season, but decreases on plants, and is related to bee diversity, abundance and community composition.