Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : Bumblebees (i.e. Bombus genus) are major pollinators of flowering wild plants and crops.Although many species are currently in decline, a number of them remain stable or are evenexpanding. One factor potentially driving changes in bumblebee distribution is the suitabilityof plant communities. Actually, bees probably have specific nutritional requirements thatcould shape their floral choices and constraint them in the current context of global change.However, most studies primarily focus on one bumblebee species at a time, making comparativestudies scarce. Herein we performed comparative bioassays on three bumblebeespecies (i.e. Bombus hypnorum, B. pratorum and B. terrestris) fed on three different pollendiets with distinct nutritive content (Cistus, Erica and Salix pollen diets). Micro-colony performancewas compared through different developmental and resource collection parametersfor understanding the impact of change in pollen diet on different bumblebee species. Theevidence suggests that B. terrestris is by far the most competitive species because of itsperformance compared to the other species, regardless of pollen diet. Our results also highlighta Bombus species effect as pollen diet impacts the micro-colonies in different waysaccording to the actual bumblebee species. Such interspecific variation in Bombus performancein response to a dietetic change underlines the importance of considering differentbumblebee species in mitigation strategies. Such comparative studies are good advice fordeveloping appropriate suites of plant species that can benefit threatened species whilesupporting stable or expanding ones.

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