Pollination landscape microbiomes Targeted loci environmental. terrestrial metagenome

The transmission pathways of microbial symbionts have fundamental influence on symbiont persistence and evolution. The core gut microbiota of honey bees and bumble bees are transmitted socially and via hive surfaces, but bacteria found in pollen provisions and guts of wild and solitary bees are also found in flowers. Here we test the hypothesis that flowers are hubs of transmission for bacteria between wild bees. We sampled the microbiomes of flowers (both bagged to exclude bees and open to bee visitation), adult and larval bees, and pollen provisions