scholarly journals Decades of native bee biodiversity surveys at Pinnacles National Park highlight the importance of monitoring natural areas over time

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan M. Meiners ◽  
Terry L. Griswold ◽  
Olivia Messinger Carril
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Habitat Type ◽  
Native Bees ◽  
Natural Areas ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Pollination Services ◽  
Agricultural Conversion ◽  
Native Bee ◽  
Bee Communities ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThousands of species of bees are in global decline, yet research addressing the ecology and status of these wild pollinators lags far behind work being done to address similar impacts on the managed honey bee. This knowledge gap is especially glaring in natural areas, despite knowledge that protected habitats harbor and export diverse bee communities into nearby croplands where their pollination services have been valued at over $3 billion per year. Surrounded by ranches and farmlands, Pinnacles National Park in the Inner South Coast Range of California contains intact Mediterranean chaparral shrubland. This habitat type is among the most valuable for bee biodiversity worldwide, as well as one of the most vulnerable to agricultural conversion, urbanization and climate change. Pinnacles National Park is also one of a very few locations where extensive native bee inventory efforts have been repeated over time. This park thus presents a valuable and rare opportunity to monitor long-term trends and baseline variability of native bees in natural habitats. Fifteen years after a species inventory marked Pinnacles as a biodiversity hotspot for native bees, we resurveyed these native bee communities over two flowering seasons using a systematic, plot-based design. Combining results, we report a total of 450 bee species within this 109km2natural area of California, including 48 new species records as of 2012 and 95 species not seen since 1999. As far as we are aware, this species richness marks Pinnacles National Park as one of the most densely diverse places known for native bees. We explore patterns of bee diversity across this protected landscape, compare results to other surveyed natural areas, and highlight the need for additional repeated inventories in protected areas over time amid widespread concerns of bee declines.

scholarly journals Decades of native bee biodiversity surveys at Pinnacles National Park highlight the importance of monitoring natural areas over time

PLoS ONE ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. e0207566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan M. Meiners ◽  
Terry L. Griswold ◽  
Olivia Messinger Carril
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Natural Areas ◽  
Native Bee ◽  
Over Time

scholarly journals A Native Bee, Melissodes tepaneca (Hymenoptera: Apidae), Benefits Cotton Production

Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac L. Esquivel ◽  
Robert N. Coulson ◽  
Michael J. Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Native Bees ◽  
Cotton Production ◽  
Pollination Services ◽  
Whole Plant ◽  
Weight Yield ◽  
Native Bee ◽  
Cotton Plants ◽  
Yield Gain ◽  
Plant Basis

The cotton agroecosystem is one of the most intensely managed, economically and culturally important cropping systems worldwide. Native pollinators are essential in providing pollination services to a diverse array of crops, including those which have the ability to self-pollinate. Cotton, which is autogamous, can potentially benefit from insect-mediated pollination services provided by native bees within the agroecosystem. Examined through two replicated experiments over two years, we hypothesized that native bees facilitated cross-pollination, which resulted in increased lint of harvested bolls produced by flowers exposed to bees and overall lint weight yield of the plant. Cotton bolls from flowers that were caged and exposed to bees, flowers that were hand-crossed, and bolls from flowers on uncaged plants exposed to pollinators had higher pre-gin weights and post-gin weights than bolls from flowers of caged plants excluded from pollinators. When cotton plants were caged with the local native bee Melissodes tepaneca, seed cotton weight was 0.8 g higher on average in 2018 and 1.18 g higher on average in 2019 than when cotton plants were excluded from bees. Cotton production gains from flowers exposed to M. tepaneca were similar when measuring lint and seed separately. Cotton flowers exposed over two weeks around the middle of the blooming period resulted in an overall yield gain of 12% to 15% on a whole plant basis and up to 24% from bolls produced from flowers exposed directly to M. tepaneca. This information complements cotton-mediated conservation benefits provided to native pollinators by substantiating native bee-mediated pollination services provided to the cotton agroecosystem.

scholarly journals Implications of Philately in Promoting the Protected Natural Areas (V) - Rodna Mountains National Park

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-93
Author(s):  
Bogdan-Vasile Cioruța ◽  
Mirela Coman ◽  
Andrei Nicolae Helindian ◽  
Alexandru Leonard Pop
Keyword(s):  
Protected Areas ◽  
National Park ◽  
Natural Areas ◽  
Natural Heritage ◽  
Postage Stamps ◽  
Protected Natural Areas ◽  
Over Time

As part of the natural heritage, our country (Romania) is a blessed place with many areas of unique beauty, with places where the spectacle of nature delights your eyes and take your breath with every step. Constantly promoting philatelic themes that use natural wealth and the beauty of our country as subjects, the administrative entity (with various names over time), nowadays Romfilatelia, responsible for issuing postage stamps performs a series of postage stamps in whose images are found rarities of flora and fauna, a miracle of nature. To show that protected natural areas have a special beauty, and to make them known to everyone and also to show the implications of thematic philately in the promotion of protected areas in the country and abroad, in this paper, we bring to the discussion the most significant philatelic peculiarities (stamps, first-day covers, illustrated and semi-illustrated postcard, maximum postcards, etc) related to the Rodna Mountains National Park.

scholarly journals Along urbanization sprawl, exotic plants distort native bee (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) assemblages in high elevation Andes ecosystem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Henríquez-Piskulich ◽  
Alejandro Vera ◽  
Gino Sandoval ◽  
Cristian Villagra
Keyword(s):  
High Altitude ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Extreme Environments ◽  
Exotic Plants ◽  
High Elevation ◽  
Native Bees ◽  
Exotic Plant ◽  
Exotic Plant Species ◽  
Pollination Services ◽  
Native Bee

Native bees contribute with a considerable portion of pollination services for endemic as well as economically important plant species. Their decline has been attributed to several human-derived influences including global warming as well as the reduction, alteration and loss of bees’ habitat. Moreover, together with human expansion comes along the introduction of exotic plant species with negative impacts over native ecosystems. Anthropic effects may have even a deeper impact on communities adapted to extreme environments, such as high elevation habitats, where abiotic stressors alone are a natural limitation to biodiversity. In these, human-borne alterations, such as the introduction of exotic plants and urbanization, may have a greater influence on native communities. In this work we explored such problem, studying the relationship between landscape and its effect over richness and abundance of native bees from the subandean belt in the Andes mountain chain. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of exotic plant abundance on this high-altitude bee assemblage. Despite landscape did not show an effect over bee richness and abundance, exotic plants did have a significant influence over native bee assemblage. The abundance of exotic plants was associated with a relative increase in the proportion of small and medium bee species. Moreover, Halictidae was the only family that appeared to be favored by an increase in the abundance of exotic plant species. We discuss these results and the urgent need for further research of high-altitude environments due to their vulnerability and high endemicity.

scholarly journals Implications of Philately in the Representation of the Ceahl?u National Park from Romania - An Ecological Revised Case Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Bogdan-Vasile Cioruța ◽  
Alexandru Leonard Pop ◽  
Mirela Coman
Keyword(s):  
Protected Area ◽  
National Park ◽  
Natural Areas ◽  
Natural Heritage ◽  
Postage Stamps ◽  
Protected Natural Areas ◽  
Over Time

Romania is a blessed place with many areas of unique beauty - as part of the natural heritage - with places where the spectacle of nature delights your eyes and take your breath with every step. Constantly promoting philatelic themes that use natural wealth and the beauty of our country as subjects, the administrative entity (with various names over time) responsible for issuing postage stamps performs a series of postage stamps in whose images are found rarities of flora and fauna, a miracle of nature. To show that protected natural areas have a special beauty, and to make them known to everyone, we bring to the talk the most significant philatelic peculiarities in the Ceahl?u National Park (Romania). In this context, the purpose of the research is to identify, index, analyze, describe and disseminate the main philatelic materials that promote the protected area considered. The realization of the whole approach was based on the information provided by a series of philatelic catalogs and sites with dedicated philatelic content. The results show that the concern for the habitat of the area was remarkable, both the multitude of identified philatelic pieces and their artwork speak for themselves.

scholarly journals Negative effects of pesticides on wild bee communities can be buffered by landscape context

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1809) ◽  
pp. 20150299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia G. Park ◽  
E. J. Blitzer ◽  
Jason Gibbs ◽  
John E. Losey ◽  
Bryan N. Danforth
Keyword(s):  
Pesticide Exposure ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Landscape Context ◽  
Pesticide Use ◽  
Natural Areas ◽  
Wild Bees ◽  
Pollination Services ◽  
Wild Bee ◽  
Bee Community ◽  
Bee Communities

Wild bee communities provide underappreciated but critical agricultural pollination services. Given predicted global shortages in pollination services, managing agroecosystems to support thriving wild bee communities is, therefore, central to ensuring sustainable food production. Benefits of natural (including semi-natural) habitat for wild bee abundance and diversity on farms are well documented. By contrast, few studies have examined toxicity of pesticides on wild bees, let alone effects of farm-level pesticide exposure on entire bee communities. Whether beneficial natural areas could mediate effects of harmful pesticides on wild bees is also unknown. Here, we assess the effect of conventional pesticide use on the wild bee community visiting apple ( Malus domestica ) within a gradient of percentage natural area in the landscape. Wild bee community abundance and species richness decreased linearly with increasing pesticide use in orchards one year after application; however, pesticide effects on wild bees were buffered by increasing proportion of natural habitat in the surrounding landscape. A significant contribution of fungicides to observed pesticide effects suggests deleterious properties of a class of pesticides that was, until recently, considered benign to bees. Our results demonstrate extended benefits of natural areas for wild pollinators and highlight the importance of considering the landscape context when weighing up the costs of pest management on crop pollination services.

scholarly journals The Native Bees of Texas: Evaluating the Benefits of a Public Engagement Course

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 702
Author(s):  
Laurel Treviño Murphy ◽  
Shelly Engelman ◽  
John L. Neff ◽  
Shalene Jha
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Native Bees ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
The Public ◽  
Native Bee ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Bee Communities ◽  
The University

Declines in native bee communities due to forces of global change have become an increasing public concern. Despite this heightened interest, there are few publicly available courses on native bees, and little understanding of how participants might benefit from such courses. In October of 2018 and 2019, we taught the ‘Native Bees of Texas’ course to the public at The University of Texas at Austin Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center botanical gardens in an active learning environment with slide-based presentations, printed photo-illustrated resources, and direct insect observations. In this study, we evaluated course efficacy and learning outcomes with a pre/post-course test, a survey, and open-ended feedback, focused on quality improvement findings. Overall, participants’ test scores increased significantly, from 60% to 87% correct answers in 2018 and from 64% to 87% in 2019, with greater post-course differences in ecological knowledge than in identification skills. Post-course, the mean of participants’ bee knowledge self-ratings was 4.56 on a five-point scale. The mean of participants’ ratings of the degree to which they attained the course learning objectives was 4.43 on a five-point scale. Assessment results provided evidence that the course enriched participants’ knowledge of native bee ecology and conservation and gave participants a basic foundation in bee identification. This highlights the utility of systematic course evaluations in public engagement efforts related to biodiversity conservation.

scholarly journals Implications of Philately in Promoting the Protected Natural Areas (III): Cozia National Park

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Bogdan-Vasile Cioruța ◽  
Alexandru Leonard Pop ◽  
Mirela Coman
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Natural Areas ◽  
Natural Heritage ◽  
Postage Stamps ◽  
Protected Natural Areas ◽  
Over Time

Romania is a blessed place with many areas of unique beauty - as part of the natural heritage - with places where the spectacle of nature delights your eyes and take your breath with every step. Constantly promoting philatelic themes that use natural wealth and the beauty of our country as subjects, the administrative entity (with various names over time) responsible for issuing postage stamps performs a series of postage stamps in whose images are found rarities of flora and fauna, a miracle of nature. To show that protected natural areas have a special beauty, and to make them known to everyone, in this paper, we bring to the discussion the most significant philatelic peculiarities in the Cozia National Park.

scholarly journals Determinants of Termite Assemblages’ Characteristics within Natural Habitats of a Sudano-Guinean Savanna (Comoe National Park, Côte d’Ivoire)

Insects ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
N’golo Koné ◽  
Kolotchèlèma Silué ◽  
Souleymane Konaté ◽  
Karl Linsenmair
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Environmental Variables ◽  
National Park ◽  
Woody Plant ◽  
Habitat Type ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Termite Species ◽  
Woody Plant Species

Termites are one of the major components of tropical ecosystems. However, the ecological and biological variables determining the structure of their communities within natural habitats are less documented in general and especially in the Comoe National Park, a Sudano-Guinean savanna zone located in the north-eastern part of Côte d’Ivoire (West Africa). Using a standardized method of belt transects, the structure of termite’s communities was estimated within habitats differing in the structure of their vegetation, soil characteristics, and the disturbance level caused by annual occurrences of bushfires. The effect of a set of environmental variables (habitat type, occurrence of annual bushfire, woody plant density, woody plant species richness, and soil physicochemical parameters) was tested on the habitat-specific recorded termite species. Sixty species of termites belonging to 19 genera, seven subfamilies and two families, namely Rhinotermitidae (Coptotermitinae and Rhinotermitinae) and Termitidae (Apicotermitinae, Cubitermitinae, Macrotermitinae, Nasutitermitinae, and Termitinae) were sampled. These species were assigned to the four feeding groups of termites: fungus growers (18 species), wood feeders (17 species), soil feeders (19 species) and the grass feeders (6 species). The highest diversity of termites was encountered in forest habitats, with 37 and 34, respectively, for the gallery forest and the forest island. Among savanna habitats, the woodland savanna was identified as the most diversified habitat with 32 recorded species, followed by the tree savanna (28 species) and the grassy savanna (17 species). The distribution of termite species and their respective feedings groups was determined by the habitat type and a set of environmental variables such as Woody Plant Diversity (WPD), Woody plant Families Diversity (WPFD), and Organic Carbon (OC). The annual Fire Occurrence (FO) was found to indirectly impact the characteristics of termite assemblages within natural habitats via their respective Herbaceous Species Richness (HSR) and Woody Plant Species Richness (WPSR). In summary, the spatial heterogeneity of the Comoe National Park, modeled by the uncontrolled annual bushfire, offers a diversified natural habitat with an important variety of termite-habitat-specific species, probably due to the food preference of these organisms and its relatively good conservation status.

scholarly journals Does urbanization favour exotic bee species? Implications for the conservation of native bees in cities

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. 20190574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Fitch ◽  
Caleb J. Wilson ◽  
Paul Glaum ◽  
Chatura Vaidya ◽  
Maria-Carolina Simao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Native Bees ◽  
Urban Warming ◽  
Native Bee ◽  
Pollinator Conservation ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Bee Communities ◽  
Bee Abundance

A growing body of research indicates that cities can support diverse bee communities. However, urbanization may disproportionately benefit exotic bees, potentially to the detriment of native species. We examined the influence of urbanization on exotic and native bees using two datasets from Michigan, USA. We found that urbanization positively influenced exotic—but not native—bee abundance and richness, and that this association could not be explained by proximity to international ports of entry, prevalence of exotic flora or urban warming. We found a negative relationship between native and exotic bee abundance at sites with high total bee abundance, suggesting that exotic bees may negatively affect native bee populations. These effects were not driven by the numerically dominant exotic honeybee, but rather by other exotic bees. Our findings complicate the emerging paradigm of cities as key sites for pollinator conservation.

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