Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T13:02:31.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Floral abundance, richness, and spatial distribution drive urban garden bee communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2017

M. Plascencia  and
S.M. Philpott
M. Plascencia
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
S.M. Philpott*
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
*
*Author for correspondence Tel.: 831-459-1549 Fax: 831-459-5900 E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In urban landscapes, gardens provide refuges for bee diversity, but conservation potential may depend on local and landscape features. Foraging and population persistence of bee species, as well as overall pollinator community structure, may be supported by the abundance, richness, and spatial distribution of floral resources. Floral resources strongly differ in urban gardens. Using hand netting and pan traps to survey bees, we examined whether abundance, richness, and spatial distribution of floral resources, as well as ground cover and garden landscape surroundings influence bee abundance, species richness, and diversity on the central coast of California. Differences in floral abundance and spatial distribution, as well as urban cover in the landscape, predicted different bee community variables. Abundance of all bees and of honeybees (Apis mellifera) was lower in sites with more urban land cover surrounding the gardens. Honeybee abundance was higher in sites with patchy floral resources, whereas bee species richness and bee diversity was higher in sites with more clustered floral resources. Surprisingly, bee species richness and bee diversity was lower in sites with very high floral abundance, possibly due to interactions with honeybees. Other studies have documented the importance of floral abundance and landscape surroundings for bees in urban gardens, but this study is the first to document that the spatial arrangement of flowers strongly predicts bee abundance and richness. Based on these findings, it is likely that garden managers may promote bee conservation by managing for floral connectivity and abundance within these ubiquitous urban habitats.

Keywords

Apidaebiodiversity conservationconnectivityresource distributionspatial ecologyurbanization
Type
Research Papers
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , Volume 107 , Issue 5 , October 2017 , pp. 658 - 667
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ascher, J.S. & Pickering, J. (2015) Discover Life bee species guide and world checklist (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila). Available online at http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?guide=Apoidea_species Google Scholar
Baldock, K.C.R., Goddard, M.A., Hicks, D.M., Kunin, W.E., Mitschunas, N., Osgathorpe, L.M., Potts, S.G., Robertson, K.M., Scott, A.V., Stone, G.N., Vaughan, I.P. & Memmott, J. (2015) Where is the UK's pollinator biodiversity? The importance of urban areas for flower-visiting insects. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 282, 20142849.Google Scholar
Barton, K. (2012) MuMIn: Multi-model inference. R package version 1.5.2. Available online at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package-MuMin Google Scholar
Bates, A.J., Sadler, J.P., Fairbrass, A.J., Falk, S.J., Hale, J.D. & Matthews, T.J. (2011) Changing bee and hoverfly pollinator assemblages along an urban–rural gradient. PLoS ONE 6, e23459.Google Scholar
Beekman, M. & Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2000) Long-range foraging by the honey-bee, Apis mellifera L. Functional Ecology 14, 490–496.Google Scholar
Braaker, S., Ghazoul, J., Obrist, M.K. & Moretti, M. (2014) Habitat connectivity shapes urban arthropod communities: the key role of green roofs. Ecology 95, 1010–1021.Google Scholar
Breeze, T.D., Bailey, A.P., Balcombe, K.G. & Potts, S.G. (2011) Pollination services in the UK: how important are honeybees? Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 142, 137–143.Google Scholar
Brosi, B.J. & Briggs, H.M. (2013) Single pollinator species losses reduce floral fidelity and plant reproductive function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, 13044–13048.Google Scholar
Calcagno, V. & de Mazancourt, C. (2010) glmulti: an R package for easy automated model selection with (generalized) linear models. Journal of Statistical Software 34, 1–29.Google Scholar
Cameron, S.A., Lozier, J.D., Strange, J.P., Koch, J.B., Cordes, N., Solter, L.F., Griswold, T.L. & Gene Robinson, B.E. (2011) Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, 662–667.Google Scholar
Cameron, R.W.F., Blanuša, T., Taylor, J.E., Salisbury, A., Halstead, A.J., Henricot, B. & Thompson, K. (2012) The domestic garden – its contribution to urban green infrastructure. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 11, 129–137.Google Scholar
Essenberg, C.J. (2012) Explaining variation in the effect of floral density on pollinator visitation. The American Naturalist 180, 153–166.Google Scholar
Fortel, L., Henry, M.L., Guilbaud, L., Guirao, A.L., Kuhlmann, M., Mouret, H., Rollin, O. & Vaissière, B.E. (2014) Decreasing abundance, increasing diversity and changing structure of the wild bee community (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) along an urbanization gradient. PLoS ONE 9, e104679.Google Scholar
Frankie, G.W., Thorp, R.W., Schindler, M., Hernandez, J., Ertter, B. & Rizzardi, M. (2005) Ecological patterns of bees and their host ornamental flowers in two northern California cities. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 78, 227–246.Google Scholar
Frankie, G.W., Thorp, R.W., Hernandez, J., Rizzardi, M., Ertter, B., Pawelek, J.C., Witt, S.L., Schindler, M., Coville, R. & Wojcik, V.A. (2009) Native bees are a rich natural resource in urban California gardens. California Agriculture 63, 113–120.Google Scholar
Frankie, G.W., Thorp, R.W., Coville, R.E., & Ertter, B. (2014) California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists. Berkeley, CA, Heyday.Google Scholar
Furst, M.A., McMahon, D.P., Osborne, J.L., Paxton, R.J. & Brown, M.J.F. (2014) Disease associations between honeybees and bumblebees as a threat to wild pollinators. Nature 506, 364–366.Google Scholar
Garbuzov, M., Madsen, A. & Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2015) Patch size has no effect on insect visitation rate per unit area in garden-scale flower patches. Acta Oecologica 62, 53–57.Google Scholar
Gaston, K.J., Warren, P.H., Thompson, K. & Smith, R.M. (2005) Urban domestic gardens (IV): the extent of the resource and its associated features. Biodiversity and Conservation 13, 3327–3349.Google Scholar
Giannini, T.C., Acosta, A.L., Garófalo, C.A., Saraiva, A.M., Alves-Dos-Santos, I. & Imperatriz-Fonseca, V.L. (2012) Pollination services at risk: bee habitats will decrease owing to climate change in Brazil. Ecological Modelling 244, 127–131.Google Scholar
Gibbs, J. (2010) Revision of the metallic species of Lasioglossum (Dialictus) in Canada (Hymenoptera, Halictidae, Halictini). Zootaxa 2591, 1–382.Google Scholar
Goddard, M.A., Dougill, A.J. & Benton, T.G. (2010) Scaling up from gardens: biodiversity conservation in urban environments. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25, 90–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goulson, D. (1999) Foraging strategies of insects for gathering nectar and pollen, and implications for plant ecology and evolution. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 2, 185–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goulson, D. (2000) Why do pollinators visit proportionally fewer flowers in large patches? Oikos 91, 485–492.Google Scholar
Greenleaf, S.S. & Kremen, C. (2006) Wild bees enhance honey bees’ pollination of hybrid sunflower. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 103, 13890–13895.Google Scholar
Greenleaf, S.S., Williams, N.M., Winfree, R. & Kremen, C. (2007) Bee foraging ranges and their relationships to body size. Oecologia 153, 589–596.Google Scholar
Gross, C.L. & Mackay, D. (1998) Honeybees reduce fitness in the pioneer shrub Melastoma affine (Melastomataceae). Biological Conservation 86, 169–178.Google Scholar
Grundel, R., Frohnapple, K.J., Jean, R.P. & Pavlovic, N.B. (2011) Effectiveness of bowl trapping and netting for inventory of a bee community. Environmental Entomology 40, 374–380.Google Scholar
Harrison, T. & Winfree, R. (2015) Urban drivers of plant–pollinator interactions. Functional Ecology 29, 879–888.Google Scholar
Hines, H.M. & Hendrix, S.D. (2005) Bumble bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) diversity and abundance in tallgrass prairie patches: effects of local and landscape floral resources. Environmental Entomology 34, 1477–1484.Google Scholar
Homer, C.G., Dewitz, J.A., Yang, L., Jin, S., Danielson, P., Xian, G., Coulston, J., Herold, N.D., Wickham, J.D. & Megown, K. (2015) Completion of the 2011 National Land Cover Database for the conterminous United States – representing a decade of land cover change information. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 81, 345–354.Google Scholar
Hudewenz, A. & Klein, A.-M. (2015) Red mason bees cannot compete with honey bees for floral resources in a cage experiment. Ecology and Evolution 5, 5049–5056.Google Scholar
Hülsmann, M., von Wehrden, H., Klein, A.-M. & Leonhardt, S.D. (2015) Plant diversity and composition compensate for negative effects of urbanization on foraging bumble bees. Apidologie 46, 760–770.Google Scholar
Hung, K.-L.J., Ascher, J.S., Gibbs, J., Irwin, R.E. & Bolger, D.T. (2015) Effects of fragmentation on a distinctive coastal sage scrub bee fauna revealed through incidental captures by pitfall traps. Journal of Insect Conservation 19, 175–179.Google Scholar
Jha, S. & Kremen, C. (2012) Resource diversity and landscape-level homogeneity drive native bee foraging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110, 555–558.Google Scholar
Klein, A.-M., Steffan-Dewenter, I. & Tscharntke, T. (2003) Fruit set of highland coffee increases with the diversity of pollinating bees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 270, 955–961.Google Scholar
Klein, A.-M., Vaissière, B.E., Cane, J.H., Steffan-Dewenter, I., Cunningham, S.A., Kremen, C. & Tscharntke, T. (2007) Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 274, 303–313.Google Scholar
Leong, M., Kremen, C. & Roderick, G.K. (2014) Pollinator interactions with yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis) across urban, agricultural, and natural landscapes. PLoS ONE 9, e86357.Google Scholar
Loram, A., Tratalos, J., Warren, P.H. & Gaston, K.J. (2007) Urban domestic gardens (X): the extent & structure of the resource in five major cities. Environmental Management 48, 808–824.Google Scholar
Martins, A.C., Goncalves, R.B. & Melo, G.A.R. (2013) Changes in wild bee fauna of a grassland in Brazil reveal negative effects associated with growing urbanization during the last 40 years. Zoologia 30, 157–176.Google Scholar
Mathieu, R., Freeman, C. & Aryal, J. (2007) Mapping private gardens in urban areas using object-oriented techniques and very high-resolution satellite imagery. Landscape and Urban Planning 81, 179–192.Google Scholar
Matteson, K.C., Ascher, J.S. & Langellotto, G.A. (2008) Bee richness and abundance in New York City urban gardens. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 101, 140–150.Google Scholar
Matteson, K.C. & Langellotto, G.A. (2010) Determinates of inner city butterfly and bee species richness. Urban Ecosystems 13, 333–347.Google Scholar
Michener, C.D. (2007) Bees of the World. Baltimore, MD, John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Moilanen, A. & Nieminen, M. (2002) Simple connectivity measures in spatial ecology. Ecology 83, 1131–1145.Google Scholar
Otoshi, M.D., Bichier, P. & Philpott, S.M. (2015) Local and landscape correlates of spider activity density and species richness in urban gardens. Environmental Entomology 44, 1043–1051.Google Scholar
Packer, L. (2015) Bees of Canada. Available online at http://www.yorku.ca/bugsrus/resources/galleries/boc Google Scholar
Paini, D.R. (2004) Impact of the introduced honey bee (Apis mellifera) (Hymenoptera: Apidae) on native bees: a review. Austral Ecology 29, 399–407.Google Scholar
Pedro, S.R.M. & Camargo, J.M. (1991) Interactions on floral resources between the Africanized honey bee Apis mellifera and the native bee community (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) in a natural “cerrado” ecosystem in southeast Brazil. Apidologie 22, 397–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philpott, S.M., Cotton, J., Bichier, P., Friedrich, R.L., Moorhead, L.C., Uno, S. & Valdez, M. (2014) Local and landscape drivers of arthropod abundance, richness, and trophic composition in urban habitats. Urban Ecosystems 17, 513–532.Google Scholar
Potts, S.G., Biesmeijer, J.C., Kremen, C., Neumann, P., Schweiger, O. & Kunin, W.E. (2010) Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25, 345–353.Google Scholar
Quistberg, R.D., Bichier, P. & Philpott, S.M. (2016) Landscape and local correlates of bee abundance and species richness in urban gardens. Environmental Entomology 45, 592–601.Google Scholar
R Development Core Team (2014) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, Reference Index Version 3.1.2. Vienna, Austria, R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available online at http://www.R-project.org Google Scholar
Ribas, C.R., Sobrinho, T.G., Schoereder, J.H., Sperber, C.F., Lopes-Andrade, C. & Soares, S.M. (2005) How large is large enough for insects? Forest fragmentation effects at three spatial scales. Acta Oecologica 27, 31–41.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.B. (1973 a) Bees of Northwestern America: Halictus (Hymenoptera: Halictidae), p. 23. Technical Bulletin 126. Corvallis, OR, Agricultural Experiment Station, Oregon State University.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.B. (1973 b) Bees of Northwestern America: Agapostemon (Hymenoptera: Halictidae), p. 23. Technical Bulletin 125. Corvallis, OR, Agricultural Experiment Station, Oregon State University.Google Scholar
Samnegard, U., Persson, A.S. & Smith, H.G. (2011) Gardens benefit bees and enhance pollination in intensively managed farmland. Biological Conservation, 144, 2602–2606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheper, J., Bommarco, R., Holzschuh, A., Potts, S.G., Riedinger, V., Roberts, S.P.M., Rundlof, M., Smith, H.G., Steffan-Dewenter, I., Wickens, J.B., Wickens, V.J. & Kleijn, D. (2015) Local and landscape-level floral resources explain effects of wildflower strips on wild bees across four European countries. Journal of Applied Ecology 52, 1165–1175.Google Scholar
Schneider, S.S. & McNally, L.C. (1993) Spatial foraging patterns and colony energy status in the African honey bee, Apis mellifera scutellata . Journal of Insect Behavior 2, 195–210.Google Scholar
Schweiger, O., Biesmeijer, J.C., Bommarco, R., Hickler, T., Hulme, P.E., Klotz, S., Kühn, I., Moora, M., Nielsen, A., Ohlemüller, R., Petanidou, T., Potts, S.G., Pyšek, P., Stout, J.C., Sykes, M.T., Tscheulin, T., Vila, M., Walther, G.-R., Westphal, C., Winter, M., Zobel, M. & Settele, J. (2010) Multiple stressors on biotic interactions: how climate change and alien species interact to affect pollination. Biological Reviews 85, 777–795.Google Scholar
Sih, A. & Baltus, M.-S. (1987) Patch size, pollinator behaviour and pollinator limitation in catnip. Ecology 68, 1679–1690.Google Scholar
Sowig, P. (1989) Effects of flowering plant's patch size on species composition of pollinator communities, foraging strategies, and resource partitioning in bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Oecologia 78, 550–558.Google Scholar
Steffan-Dewenter, I., Munzenberg, U., Burger, C., Thies, C. & Tscharntke, T. (2002) Scale-dependent effects of landscape context on three pollinator guilds. Ecology 83, 1421–1432.Google Scholar
Tanner, C.J., Adler, F.R., Grimm, N.B., Groffman, P.M., Levin, S.A., Munshi-South, J., Pataki, D.E., Pavao-Zuckerman, M. & Wilson, W.G. (2014) Urban ecology: advancing science and society. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12, 574–581.Google Scholar
Thomson, J.D. (1981) Spatial and temporal components of resource assessment by flower-feeding insects. Journal of Animal Ecology 50, 49–59.Google Scholar
Threlfall, C.G., Walker, K., Williams, N.S.G., Hahs, A.K., Mata, L., Stork, N. & Livesley, S.J. (2015) The conservation value of urban green space habitats for Australian native bee communities. Biological Conservation 187, 240–248.Google Scholar
Tommasi, D., Miro, A., Higo, H.A. & Winston, M.L. (2004) Bee diversity and abundance in an urban setting. The Canadian Entomologist 136, 851–869.Google Scholar
Tonietto, R., Fant, J., Ascher, J., Ellis, K. & Larkin, D. (2011) A comparison of bee communities of Chicago green roofs, parks and prairies. Landscape and Urban Planning 103, 102–108.Google Scholar
Torné-Noguera, A., Rodrigo, A., Arnan, X., Osorio, S., Barril-Graells, H., Correia Da Rocha-Filho, L.O., Bosch, J. & Ollerton, J. (2014) Determinants of spatial distribution in a bee community: nesting resources, flower resources, and body size. PLoS ONE 9, e97255.Google Scholar
Tuell, J.K. & Isaacs, R. (2009) Elevated pan traps to monitor bees in flowering crop canopies. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 131, 93–98.Google Scholar
van Heezik, Y., Freeman, C., Porter, S. & Dickinson, K.J.M. (2013) Garden size, householder knowledge, and socio-economic status influence plant and bird diversity at the scale of individual gardens. Ecosystems 16, 1442–1454.Google Scholar
Veddeler, D., Klein, A.M. & Tscharntke, T. (2006) Contrasting responses of bee communities to coffee flowering at different spatial scales. Oikos 112, 594–601.Google Scholar
Williams, N.M. & Kremen, C. (2007) Resource distribution among habitats determines solitary bee offspring production in a mosaic landscape. Ecological Applications 17, 910–921.Google Scholar
Winfree, R., Aguilar, R., Vázquez, D.P., LeBuhn, G. & Aizen, A. (2009) A meta-analysis of bees’ responses to anthropogenic disturbance. Ecology 90, 2068–2076.Google Scholar
Winfree, R., Gross, B.J. & Kremen, C. (2011) Valuing pollination services to agriculture. Ecological Economics 71, 80–88.Google Scholar
Wojcik, V.A. & McBride, J.R. (2012) Common factors influence bee foraging in urban and wildland landscapes. Urban Ecosystems 15, 581–598.Google Scholar
Wojcik, V.A., Frankie, G.W., Thorp, R.W. & Hernandez, J.L. (2008) Seasonality in bees and their floral resource plants at a constructed urban bee habitat in Berkeley, California. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 81, 15–28.Google Scholar
Zurbuchen, A., Landert, L., Klaiber, J., Müller, A., Hein, S. & Dorn, S. (2010) Maximum foraging ranges in solitary bees: only few individuals have the capability to cover long foraging distances. Biological Conservation 143, 669–676.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Plascencia and Philpott supplementary material

Plascencia and Philpott supplementary material 1

Download Plascencia and Philpott supplementary material(File)
File 100.2 KB
Supplementary material: File

Plascencia and Philpott supplementary material

Plascencia and Philpott supplementary material 2

Download Plascencia and Philpott supplementary material(File)
File 114.1 KB