Conventional agriculture affects sex communication and impacts local population size in a wild bee

Abstract

Man-made agricultural stressors have been identified to compromise the reproductive dynamics of bee populations within agricultural environments. With the aid of bee hotels, we explored the influence of conventional and organic farming systems on local population size and body traits of the mason bee, Osmia bicornis, , in southern Germany. We further used a chemical ecology approach and bioassays to test whether farming management influence male pre-copulatory behaviors. We observed a positive relationship between the extent of organic agriculture in the landscape and both overall brood cell production and nesting frequency. Moreover, farming systems were found to influence body traits, with bees from organic sites being smaller in size and having a different cuticular hydrocarbon composition compared with those at conventional sites. Bioassays revealed that males were more sexually attracted to freeze-killed females from conventional sites compared with those from organic sites. Intriguingly, treating females from organic fields with synthetic semiochemicals enhanced their sexual attraction to levels comparable with females from conventional sites. Our findings shed light on the intricate interplay between farming practices and the reproductive behaviors of wild mason bees, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive understanding of these dynamics for effective conservation and management strategies.