Thrips on honey bees: more than hitchhikers?

Although the interaction among bees and thrips is not entirely clear at present, the high frequency of thrips found on foraging bees has led us to believe that this represents a case of facultative phoresy. Keywords: agroecosystems; flowers; phoronts; species interactions; Thripidae EN agroecosystems flowers phoronts species interactions Thripidae 1 3 3 01/05/22 20220101 NES 220101 Thrips (Thysanoptera) are opportunistic organisms that exhibit a wide range of life histories. Although it is clear that bees can acquire phoretic thrips from plants, future research should focus on confirming that thrips are capable of moving from bees on to plants and should estimate the typical distances moved through bee-mediated phoresy. Bees foraging on plants yielded 24 thrips (16 adults and 8 larvae), whereas 18 thrips were collected from bees returning to the hive (Table 1). [Extracted from the article]