CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF FUNCTIONAL TRAIT VARIATIONS IN CROP POLLINATORS

Bees are essential for the production of our most high-value and nutrient dense foods. However, the supply of pollination services is threatened by declines in many important pollinator species driven primarily by loss of forage and nesting habitat. Simplification of agricultural landscapes can therefore undermine the very biodiversity and ecosystem services that would otherwise benefit crop production. Yet, while some bee species have experienced dramatic declines others are able to persist in simplified agricultural landscapes. Bees possess a diversity of functional traits (body size, sociality, diet breadth) that both mediate their responses to the environment and determine their efficiency as crop pollinators. These traits vary between and within species and our preliminary findings show that traits like body size are strongly influenced by landscape simplification. The proposed research will use bioinformatics approaches and natural history collections combined with field studies and laboratory experiments to examine how landscape simplification affects intraspecific body and its consequences for pollination services. The specific objectives are to: 1) characterize intraspecific body size variation and its relationship to landscape simplification across a broad range of bee species; 2) evaluate the potential mechanisms driving changes in size; and 3) assess the consequences for pollination services. An improved understanding of how bees respond to environmental stressors associated with landscape simplification will allow conservation practitioners to identify vulnerable species and appropriate interventions.