| Summary: | <i>Vairimorpha</i>, a microsporidian parasite (previously classified as <i>Nosema</i>), has been implicated in the decline of wild bumble bee species in North America. Previous studies examining its influence on colony performance have displayed variable results, from extremely detrimental effects to no observable influence, and little is known about the effects it has on individuals during the winter diapause, a bottleneck for survival in many annual pollinators. Here, we examined the effect of <i>Vairimorpha</i> infection, body size, and mass on diapause survival in <i>Bombus griseocollis</i> gynes. We demonstrate that gyne survival length in diapause is negatively affected by symptomatic <i>Vairimorpha</i> infection of the maternal colony but does not correlate with individual pathogen load. Our findings further indicate that increased body mass offers a protective effect against mortality during diapause in infected, but not in healthy, gynes. This suggests that access to adequate nutritional resources prior to diapause might offset the harmful effect of <i>Vairimorpha</i> infection.
|
|---|