TY - JOUR
T1 - Six years of wild bee monitoring shows changes in biodiversity within and across years and declines in abundance
AU - Turley, Nash E.
AU - Biddinger, David J.
AU - Joshi, Neelendra K.
AU - López-Uribe, Margarita M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the orchard fruit growers Scott Slaybaugh, Jim Lerew, Bill Pulig, and Barry Rice for allowing us to conduct studies on their land and to Jim Gillis and Mace Vaughan for their support in establishing the USDA-NRCS wildflower strips. The authors thank Kathryn Wholaver, Lolita Miller, Sarah Heller, and many others at the Pennsylvania State Fruit Research and Extension Center. Jason Gibbs, Robert Jean, and Sam Droege identified bees and the members of the López-Uribe Lab provided helpful feedback on the previous versions of the manuscript. This research was supported by a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Grant number C940000555, and USDA-NIFA-AFRI Specialty Crop Research Initiative, Project 2012-51181-20105. DJB was funded through the USDA NIFA Appropriations under Project PEN04620. MML-U was funded through the USDA NIFA Appropriations under Projects PEN04716 and PEN04620.
Funding Information:
The authors thank the orchard fruit growers Scott Slaybaugh, Jim Lerew, Bill Pulig, and Barry Rice for allowing us to conduct studies on their land and to Jim Gillis and Mace Vaughan for their support in establishing the USDA‐NRCS wildflower strips. The authors thank Kathryn Wholaver, Lolita Miller, Sarah Heller, and many others at the Pennsylvania State Fruit Research and Extension Center. Jason Gibbs, Robert Jean, and Sam Droege identified bees and the members of the López‐Uribe Lab provided helpful feedback on the previous versions of the manuscript. This research was supported by a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Grant number C940000555, and USDA‐NIFA‐AFRI Specialty Crop Research Initiative, Project 2012‐51181‐20105. DJB was funded through the USDA NIFA Appropriations under Project PEN04620. MML‐U was funded through the USDA NIFA Appropriations under Projects PEN04716 and PEN04620.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - Wild bees form diverse communities that pollinate plants in both native and agricultural ecosystems making them both ecologically and economically important. The growing evidence of bee declines has sparked increased interest in monitoring bee community and population dynamics using standardized methods. Here, we studied the dynamics of bee biodiversity within and across years by monitoring wild bees adjacent to four apple orchard locations in Southern Pennsylvania, USA. We collected bees using passive Blue Vane traps continuously from April to October for 6 years (2014–2019) amassing over 26,000 bees representing 144 species. We quantified total abundance, richness, diversity, composition, and phylogenetic structure. There were large seasonal changes in all measures of biodiversity with month explaining an average of 72% of the variation in our models. Changes over time were less dramatic with years explaining an average of 44% of the variation in biodiversity metrics. We found declines in all measures of biodiversity especially in the last 3 years, though additional years of sampling are needed to say if changes over time are part of a larger trend. Analyses of population dynamics over time for the 40 most abundant species indicate that about one third of species showed at least some evidence for declines in abundance. Bee family explained variation in species-level seasonal patterns but we found no consistent family-level patterns in declines, though bumble bees and sweat bees were groups that declined the most. Overall, our results show that season-wide standardized sampling across multiple years can reveal nuanced patterns in bee biodiversity, phenological patterns of bees, and population trends over time of many co-occurring species. These datasets could be used to quantify the relative effects that different aspects of environmental change have on bee communities and to help identify species of conservation concern.
AB - Wild bees form diverse communities that pollinate plants in both native and agricultural ecosystems making them both ecologically and economically important. The growing evidence of bee declines has sparked increased interest in monitoring bee community and population dynamics using standardized methods. Here, we studied the dynamics of bee biodiversity within and across years by monitoring wild bees adjacent to four apple orchard locations in Southern Pennsylvania, USA. We collected bees using passive Blue Vane traps continuously from April to October for 6 years (2014–2019) amassing over 26,000 bees representing 144 species. We quantified total abundance, richness, diversity, composition, and phylogenetic structure. There were large seasonal changes in all measures of biodiversity with month explaining an average of 72% of the variation in our models. Changes over time were less dramatic with years explaining an average of 44% of the variation in biodiversity metrics. We found declines in all measures of biodiversity especially in the last 3 years, though additional years of sampling are needed to say if changes over time are part of a larger trend. Analyses of population dynamics over time for the 40 most abundant species indicate that about one third of species showed at least some evidence for declines in abundance. Bee family explained variation in species-level seasonal patterns but we found no consistent family-level patterns in declines, though bumble bees and sweat bees were groups that declined the most. Overall, our results show that season-wide standardized sampling across multiple years can reveal nuanced patterns in bee biodiversity, phenological patterns of bees, and population trends over time of many co-occurring species. These datasets could be used to quantify the relative effects that different aspects of environmental change have on bee communities and to help identify species of conservation concern.
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U2 - 10.1002/ece3.9190
DO - 10.1002/ece3.9190
M3 - Article
C2 - 35983174
AN - SCOPUS:85136957337
SN - 2045-7758
VL - 12
JO - Ecology and Evolution
JF - Ecology and Evolution
IS - 8
M1 - e9190
ER -