Resource availability and nutritional quality are central to structuring foraging decisions and determining reproductive success in all animal species. Animals with no parental care that provide resources to offspring, such as bees, must carefully balance the offspring provision to maximize (?) larvae development. While variations in floral abundance and pollen protein content are known to influence bee-flower interactions, it is still unknown how flower nutritional characteristics impact individual foraging preferences and reproductive outcomes. To address this gap, we conducted controlled greenhouse experiments with the solitary bee Osmia lignaria, examining how abundance, floral species richness, and pollen protein content affect foraging behavior and offspring production. We determine foraging behavior using empirical observations of interactions, metabarcoding the pollen provision in nests, and using a machine learning approach to quantify foraging activity from videos. We assess (i) the influence of floral resource availability and nutritional quality on individual foraging decisions; (ii) the effect of pollen protein variation on the number of eggs laid; and (iii) how individual foraging behavior structure interaction networks under resource fluctuations. By integrating insights from foraging ecology, network analysis, and natural history of solitary bees, our study enhanced our understanding of pollinator responses to resource heterogeneity, thereby informing conservation strategies to maintain pollinator health and ecosystem stability.
.png)
