Why bumblebees have become model species in apidology: A brief history and perspectives
Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemAutor
Lihoreau, Mathieu; Monchanin, Coline; Lacombrade, Mathilde; Brebner, Joanna; Gómez Moracho, TamaraEditorial
Springer
Materia
Bumble bees Bombus terrestris Bombus impatiens
Fecha
2025-02-04Referencia bibliográfica
Lihoreau, M., Monchanin, C., Lacombrade, M. et al. Why bumblebees have become model species in apidology: A brief history and perspectives. Apidologie 56, 19 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-024-01138-9
Patrocinador
Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier; ERC Consolidator grant Bee-Move (GA101002644) to MLResumen
In recent years, bumblebees have increasingly been used to study various aspects of bee biology,
ecology and evolution. They are now broadly accepted as tractable model species, complementary to the domestic
honey bees, for fundamental and applied apidology. Here, we provide a brief history of how bumblebee research
developed since their domestication and commercialisation for crop pollination in the 1990s. Bumblebees are
large social bees that can be kept and trained in the lab year-round. They are easy to manipulate and track individually
in their small colonies. These practical advantages have offered new possibilities for experimental bee
research, leading to major breakthroughs in different fields such as cognition, navigation, nutrition, host-parasite
interactions, and insect declines. Many of these findings have later been confirmed in honey bees and other pollinators.
We discuss some exciting directions for future apidology research based on bumblebees.