Counting marmots…
Bumble bee workers vary widely in body size, influenced by resource availability and temperature during larval development. This variation allows for success in a range of abiotic and biotic conditions, and informs diBerent foraging strategies. As anthropogenic climate change increases temperatures and bee body sizes decrease, understanding the impact of body size on specific features of their foraging paths including inter-patch flight distance, inter-patch travel time, patch residence time, and patch floral density and ii) foraging path fidelity is critical. I found that larger bumble bees travel farther distances between foraging patches, as well as take longer flights between foraging patches. With decreasing body size, potentially corresponding to a decrease in inter-patch travel time and flight distances, bees may be vulnerable to missing better resourced patches that are isolated. This decline might limit their resource acquisition and negatively impact the successful growth and development of bumble bee colonies. The eBect on pollinators can have a rippling eBect outward to the entire meadow ecosystem, further accentuating the importance of understanding bumblebee foraging ecology.
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