Continuing the theme of land use and bee nutrition:

> Previous studies on a range of invertebrates, including honeybees, indicate that dietary protein intake may have a major impact on correlates of fitness, including longevity and immune function. The finding that beebread protein content correlates with land use suggests that landscape composition may impact on insect pollinator well-being and provides a link between landscape and the nutritional ecology of socially foraging insects in a way not previously considered. 

> There is a significant gap in our knowledge regarding how  nutrition is linked to environmental composition and the results of the present study address this gap by attempting to explain how landscape composition interacts with the nutritional composition of beebread, the major food source for honeybee brood.

> Widespread declines in insect pollinators across Europe may be due to a combination of agricultural intensification and habitat degradation (Potts et al. 2010; Breeze et al. 2014), and the nutritional impacts of agricultural landscapes may be linked to pollinator decline.

Donkersley, P., Rhodes, G., Pickup, R. W., Jones, K. C., & Wilson, K. (2014). Honeybee nutrition is linked to landscape composition. Ecology and evolution, 4(21), 4195-4206.

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