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Start Date
4-4-2023 11:20 AM
End Date
4-4-2023 11:29 AM
Abstract
Bees are critically important organisms that support biodiversity and crop production via their pollination services. The decline of pollinators has been documented for some native bee taxa, and habitat loss and fragmentation are considered primary drivers of population losses. Although urbanization drives habitat loss and fragmentation, urban gardens can provide a refuge for native bees, and have been the subject of garden bee studies for a few decades. We thus reviewed urban garden bee studies and compiled and analyzed an original metadataset of garden bee functional traits to summarize what has been learned about the potential conservation value of gardens to bees and to identify gaps in our current research efforts. The total number of bee species found across all urban garden studies was between 552 to 647 bee species. Urban garden bee species displayed an array of functional traits, although bees that were non-eusocial, ground-nesting, generalist foragers, and native were most common. The relatively high proportion of parasitic bees suggest that gardens represent high quality habitat for bee communities. Garden bee studies are completely biased towards the Global North. The diversity and non-standard sampling methods employed by garden bee researchers makes it difficult to directly compare results between studies. Our analyses highlight both successes of past urban garden bee studies, and areas of opportunity for future research as we move into a fourth decade of garden bee studies. The presenter would be Nicole Bell, M.S. candidate at the Garden Ecology Lab at Oregon State University. This research is complete.
Subjects
Conservation biology, Habitat restoration
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40490
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Assessing Three Decades of Urban Garden Bee Studies
Bees are critically important organisms that support biodiversity and crop production via their pollination services. The decline of pollinators has been documented for some native bee taxa, and habitat loss and fragmentation are considered primary drivers of population losses. Although urbanization drives habitat loss and fragmentation, urban gardens can provide a refuge for native bees, and have been the subject of garden bee studies for a few decades. We thus reviewed urban garden bee studies and compiled and analyzed an original metadataset of garden bee functional traits to summarize what has been learned about the potential conservation value of gardens to bees and to identify gaps in our current research efforts. The total number of bee species found across all urban garden studies was between 552 to 647 bee species. Urban garden bee species displayed an array of functional traits, although bees that were non-eusocial, ground-nesting, generalist foragers, and native were most common. The relatively high proportion of parasitic bees suggest that gardens represent high quality habitat for bee communities. Garden bee studies are completely biased towards the Global North. The diversity and non-standard sampling methods employed by garden bee researchers makes it difficult to directly compare results between studies. Our analyses highlight both successes of past urban garden bee studies, and areas of opportunity for future research as we move into a fourth decade of garden bee studies. The presenter would be Nicole Bell, M.S. candidate at the Garden Ecology Lab at Oregon State University. This research is complete.