TY - JOUR
T1 - Impacts of seasonality and parasitism on honey bee population dynamics
AU - Chen, Jun
AU - Rincon, Jordy O.Rodriguez
AU - DeGrandi-Hoffman, Gloria
AU - Fewell, Jennifer
AU - Harrison, Jon
AU - Kang, Yun
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - The honeybee plays an extremely important role in ecosystem stability and diversity and in the production of bee pollinated crops. Honey bees and other pollinators are under threat from the combined effects of nutritional stress, parasitism, pesticides, and climate change that impact the timing, duration, and variability of seasonal events. To understand how parasitism and seasonality influence honey bee colonies separately and interactively, we developed a non-autonomous nonlinear honeybee-parasite interaction differential equation model that incorporates seasonality into the egg-laying rate of the queen. Our theoretical results show that parasitism negatively impacts the honey bee population either by decreasing colony size or destabilizing population dynamics through supercritical or subcritical Hopf-bifurcations depending on conditions. Our bifurcation analysis and simulations suggest that seasonality alone may have positive or negative impacts on the survival of honey bee colonies. More specifically, our study indicates that (1) the timing of the maximum egg-laying rate seems to determine when seasonality has positive or negative impacts; and (2) when the period of seasonality is large it can lead to the colony collapsing. Our study further suggests that the synergistic influences of parasitism and seasonality can lead to complicated dynamics that may positively and negatively impact the honey bee colony’s survival. Our work partially uncovers the intrinsic effects of climate change and parasites, which potentially provide essential insights into how best to maintain or improve a honey bee colony’s health.
AB - The honeybee plays an extremely important role in ecosystem stability and diversity and in the production of bee pollinated crops. Honey bees and other pollinators are under threat from the combined effects of nutritional stress, parasitism, pesticides, and climate change that impact the timing, duration, and variability of seasonal events. To understand how parasitism and seasonality influence honey bee colonies separately and interactively, we developed a non-autonomous nonlinear honeybee-parasite interaction differential equation model that incorporates seasonality into the egg-laying rate of the queen. Our theoretical results show that parasitism negatively impacts the honey bee population either by decreasing colony size or destabilizing population dynamics through supercritical or subcritical Hopf-bifurcations depending on conditions. Our bifurcation analysis and simulations suggest that seasonality alone may have positive or negative impacts on the survival of honey bee colonies. More specifically, our study indicates that (1) the timing of the maximum egg-laying rate seems to determine when seasonality has positive or negative impacts; and (2) when the period of seasonality is large it can lead to the colony collapsing. Our study further suggests that the synergistic influences of parasitism and seasonality can lead to complicated dynamics that may positively and negatively impact the honey bee colony’s survival. Our work partially uncovers the intrinsic effects of climate change and parasites, which potentially provide essential insights into how best to maintain or improve a honey bee colony’s health.
KW - Climate change
KW - Honey bees
KW - Parasitism
KW - Seasonality
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U2 - 10.1007/s00285-023-01952-2
DO - 10.1007/s00285-023-01952-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 37389742
AN - SCOPUS:85163747696
SN - 0303-6812
VL - 87
JO - Journal Of Mathematical Biology
JF - Journal Of Mathematical Biology
IS - 1
M1 - 19
ER -