scholarly journals Bees support farming. Does farming support bees?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Preeti S. Virkar ◽  
Ekta Siddhu ◽  
V. P. Uniyal
Keyword(s):  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Habitat Diversity ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Doon Valley ◽  
Bee Diversity ◽  
Specialist Species ◽  
Bee Communities ◽  
The Tropics

AbstractTropical regions are subjected to rapid land use changes altering species composition and diversity in communities. The non-Apis bees are vital invertebrates continued to be highly neglected in the tropics. We compared their diversity status, richness and composition across natural areas and agroecosystems in Doon valley, a subtropical-temperate landscape situated at the foothills of outer Himalayas in India. We investigated how two major habitats relate to non-Apis bee diversity, specifically seeking answers to (1) Whether natural habitat is a refuge to richer and rarer bee communities than agroecosystems? (2) Are natural habitats important for supporting wild bee populations in agroecosystems? (3) Do polyculture farms behave similar to natural habitats and therefore support richer bee communities than monoculture? Observation and pantrap sampling were used to collect data. We recorded 43 species belonging to bees of five families. The findings of our investigation demonstrate the importance of natural habitats as a potential refuge for non-Apis bees. The findings highlighted that Doon valley harboured twenty-five rare species of non-Apis bees, and natural habitats are a refuge to 11 rare specialist species (clamtest; Specialization threshold K = 2/3, Alpha level = 0.005). Natural habitat diversity in Doon valley supports bee communities in nearby agroecosystems (R2 = 0.782, SE = 0.148, P = 0.004). Polyculture practices in agroecosystems (<100m from forest H’ = 2.15; >100m from forest = 2.08) in the valley mimic natural habitats (H’ = 2.37) and support diverse non-Apis bee communities (2.08) in comparison to monocultures (<100m from forest H’ = 2.13; >100m from forest =1.56). Bees evolved with flowering plants over 120 million years and they suffice an ever-growing anthropogenic nutrition needs with their services through enhanced agricultural production in pursuit of forage. We finally recommend similar assessments of bee diversity and plants they support in different habitats and vice versa.

scholarly journals Rapid Assessment and Ground Truthing of Habitat Composition and Analysis of Semi-Natural Habitat Diversity of Proposed Greenway Developments

2019 ◽  
Vol 77 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Julien Carlier ◽  
James Moran
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Rapid Assessment ◽  
Habitat Diversity ◽  
Matrix Composition ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Land Use Intensification ◽  
Ground Truthing

Across Europe, Greenways upcycle disused railway infrastructure into non-motorised public infrastructure, often with limited consideration to potential ecological synergies. Pre-development, disused transport corridors become relatively undisturbed and potentially host diverse semi-natural habitats. The study objectives were 1) to produce a highly detailed and accurate dataset using remote sensing with rapid assessment techniques for ground truthing and 2) subsequently examine habitat diversity existing along a proposed Greenway. A 7000 ha study corridor was based on a disused railway proposed as a transfrontier Greenway connecting the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The study applied a rapid-assessment virtual validation techniquealongside remote sensing and accuracy assessment. Inter-relationship between seminatural habitat diversity and land-use intensification was examined. Remote sensing accuracies of 89% and 99% for a real and linear habitat classification were obtained. Degrees of land-use intensification were observed throughout the corridor, highlighting the importance of maintaining and enhancing remaining semi-natural habitat that exists along the proposed Greenway route. Through understanding the landscape matrix composition and semi-natural habitat diversity, European Greenwayscan achieve multi-functionality for ecosystem conservation, forming integral components of Green Infrastructure.

scholarly journals Bees use anthropogenic habitats despite strong natural habitat preferences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Á. Collado ◽  
Daniel Sol ◽  
Ignasi Bartomeus
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Loss ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Habitat Preferences ◽  
Abundant Species ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Large Dataset ◽  
Anthropogenic Habitats ◽  
Bee Diversity ◽  
Northeast Usa

ABSTRACTHabitat loss and alteration is widely considered one of the main drivers of the current loss of pollinator diversity. Unfortunately, we still lack a comprehensive analysis of habitat importance, use and preference for major groups of pollinators. Here, we address this gap analysing a large dataset of 15,762 bee specimens (more than 400 species) across northeast USA. We found that natural habitats sustain the highest bee diversity, with many species strongly depending on such habitats. By characterizing habitat use and preference for the 45 most abundant species, we also show that many bee species can use human-altered habitats despite exhibiting strong and clear preferences for forested habitats. However, only a few species appear to do well when the habitat has been drastically modified. We conclude that although altered environments may harbor a substantial number of species, preserving natural areas is still essential to guarantee the conservation of bee biodiversity.

Bee (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) diversity within apple orchards and old fields in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, Canada

2012 ◽  
Vol 145 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cory S. Sheffield ◽  
Peter G. Kevan ◽  
Alana Pindar ◽  
Laurence Packer
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Old Fields ◽  
Apple Orchards ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Bee Communities ◽  
Annapolis Valley ◽  
Agricultural Regions

AbstractBees are important within terrestrial ecosystems, providing pollination, which facilitates plant reproduction. Agricultural regions are large landscapes containing varying proportions of cropland, natural, and semi-natural habitats. Most bees are not restricted to any of these and move freely throughout, exploiting food and nesting resources in favourable locations. Many factors affect bee diversity, and knowledge of these is crucial for promoting healthy bee communities. The main objectives of this study were to compare diversity and guild structure of bee communities across a range of land disturbance levels within the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, Canada, in habitats ranging from managed apple orchards to old fields. The two habitat extremes differed significantly; intensely managed orchards had significantly lower species richness (∼50%) than observed/estimated in old fields, but orchards with intermediate levels of adjacent natural/semi-natural habitat showed affinities to either extreme depending on the metrics used for estimating species richness. Species assemblages in orchards had lower proportions of several guilds, particularly cavity-nesters, bumble bees, and cleptoparasites, than other habitats. These guilds accounted for over 30% of bees collected in old fields but only 3–10% in orchards, increasing with habitat complexity. The use of guilds for assessing the health of bee communities is discussed.

scholarly journals Effects of Habitat Conversion on Ant Functional Groups: A Global Review

Sociobiology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 6071
Author(s):  
Roberta De Jesus Santos ◽  
Pavel Dodonov ◽  
Jacques Hubert C. Delabie
Keyword(s):  
Functional Groups ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Cold Climate ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Land Conversion ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Hot Climate ◽  
Habitat Conversion ◽  
The Tropics

Conversion of natural to anthropogenic environments affects biodiversity, and the understanding of these impacts may be improved by assessing how different functional groups respond to such land conversion. We studied land conversion impacts on ant functional groups, as ants are ecologically important and respond well to various environmental changes. We hypothesized that conversion of natural to anthropogenic environments modifies the composition of functional groups, fostering generalist and opportunistic groups over specialist ones, with more responses of this type in tropical than in temperate regions. We recovered 412 papers from ISI Web of Science, of which we selected 17 studies, published between 1993 and 2018, that addressed our study’s question. We assessed whether each functional group responded positively or negatively to conversion of natural habitat into anthropogenic land uses and used Monte Carlo tests to assess significance. Ants were affected by natural habitat conversion into monoculture and polyculture and by the conversion of savannas and of tropical and subtropical forests. Land conversion affected six of the 13 functional groups assessed here. In the temperate zone, cryptic species, predators, subordinate Camponotini, cold-climate specialists and tropical-climate specialists were impaired, whereas hot-climate specialists were favored. In the tropics, land conversion negatively impacted fungus-growers and predators. In both climatic zones, several functional groups, mainly those with broad ecological niches, did not respond to land conversion. Our results corroborate that land conversion effects vary among ant functional groups and indicate that the ant fauna of temperate ecosystems may be more susceptible than that of tropical regions.

scholarly journals Complex landscapes partially mitigate negative pesticide effects on tropical pollinator communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Obregon ◽  
Olger R. Guerrero ◽  
Elena Stashenko ◽  
Katja Poveda
Keyword(s):  
Pesticide Residues ◽  
Fruit Set ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Landscape Composition ◽  
List Type ◽  
Buffer Effect ◽  
Pollination Services ◽  
Pollinator Decline ◽  
Bee Diversity ◽  
Bee Communities

AbstractLand-use change and pesticides have been identified as two of the main causes behind pollinator decline. Understanding how these factors affect crop pollinator communities is crucial to inform practices that generate optimal pollination and ensure sustainable food production. In this study, we investigated the effects of landscape composition and pesticide residues on bee communities and their pollination services in Solanum quitoense “lulo” crops in Colombia. On 10 farms, located along a gradient of landscape complexity that varied from 0.15 to 0.62 in their natural habitat proportion, we characterized the bee community visiting the crop, and carried out pollination experiments with bagged and open inflorescences to later estimate fruit set, weight, and diameter at every site. Additionally, we performed pesticide analysis on collected anthers through liquid chromatography to estimate pesticide risk coming from the crop fields using hazard quotients (HQ). Bee abundance and species richness decreased with increased HQ, but these negative pesticide effects were less detrimental in farms with higher natural habitat proportions. However, this buffer effect was lost at sites with very high HQs. Imidacloprid was frequently found in the anthers and there were extremely high concentrations in some farms (0.6 to 13063 μg/kg), representing the molecule of greater risk for bees in this context. Pollinator’s importance to crop yield was demonstrated in the exclusion experiments, where we found a reduction in fruit set (51%), weight (39%), and diameter (25%). We found a significant effect of bee richness on fruit set, while landscape composition and HQ had no significant effect on fruit set, suggesting that the last two factors do not affect yield directly, but indirectly through a decrease in pollinator diversity. Our results provide novel evidence that the natural habitat loss due to the expansion of pastures for cattle ranching and pesticide residues in anthers reduce bee diversity and abundance in this Andean cropping system, but strategies to protect and restore natural habitat can help to buffer, until certain levels, these negative effects.Highlights- We explored how landscape composition and pesticide residues impact bee communities and pollination services in Solanum quitoense crops.- As the proportion of natural habitat in the landscape increased, bee richness also increased. While as pesticide hazard quotients in S. quitoense anthers increased, bee diversity and abundance decreased.- The natural habitat surrounding farms mitigates the negative pesticide effects on bees when hazard quotients are low/medium, but not when they are high.- S. quitoense crops are highly dependent on bees for optimum yield.

scholarly journals The Potential of Manor Gardens for Natural Habitats Conservation

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Markéta Šantrůčková ◽  
Katarína Demková ◽  
Jiří Dostálek ◽  
Tomáš Frantík
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Natura 2000 ◽  
Significant Loss ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Surrounding Landscape ◽  
Surrounding Areas

Abstract Historical gardens established around manors form an integral part of the European cultural landscape. Recent studies have revealed that manor gardens may serve as local hotspots of biodiversity and provide cultural ecosystem services within urban areas but also in rural landscapes. As a consequence of dramatic land-use changes in recent centuries, followed by a significant loss and degradation of natural habitats, manor gardens often serve as refugia for organisms within the cultural landscape. To compare the proportion of natural habitats in manor gardens with the surrounding landscape, intensively used and semi-natural landscapes were distinguished within a grid using Coordinated Information on the Environment (CORINE) land cover data for the Czech Republic. One hundred manor gardens were randomly selected, followed by a grid overlay of data from the Natura 2000 mapping system. Proportions of natural habitats were calculated for each garden in relation to the surrounding landscape. The results confirmed that manor gardens, compared with the surrounding landscape, play an important role in the conservation of natural habitats, especially in areas with a high level of human impact. For the gardens studied, occurrences of the following natural habitat types from the Natura 2000 system were recorded: forests (25.4 % of the garden area), secondary grasslands (4.4 %), streams and water bodies (1.6 %) and wetlands and riverine vegetation (0.5 %). The proportion of natural habitats within the gardens compared to the surrounding areas was significantly higher in the majority of cases.

scholarly journals Family graveyards form underappreciated local plant diversity hotspots in China's agricultural landscapes

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Gong ◽  
Liangtao Li ◽  
Jan C. Axmarcher ◽  
Zhenrong Yu ◽  
Yunhui Liu
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Habitat Islands ◽  
Local Plant ◽  
Ecological Functioning

AbstractIn the intensively farmed, homogenous agricultural landscape of the North China Plain, family graveyards form distinct cultural landscape features. In addition to their cultural value, these graveyards represent semi-natural habitat islands whose potential roles in biodiversity conservation and ecological functioning has remained poorly understood. In this study, we investigated plant species richness on 199 family graveyards of different ages and sizes. In accordance with biogeography theory, both overall and insect-pollinated plant species richness increased with area and age of graveyards. Even small graveyards show a strong potential for conserving local plant richness, and a mosaic of both large and small family graveyards could play an important role in the conservation of farmland biodiversity and related ecosystem functions. The launch of agri-environmental measures that conserve and create semi-natural habitats, in turn benefitting agricultural biodiversity and ecological functioning, has proven difficult in China due to the shortage of dispensable arable land. Given the great value of family graveyards as semi-natural habitats reflected in our study, we propose to focus preliminary efforts on conserving these landscape features as existing, widespread and culturally important semi-natural habitat islands. This would represent an effective, complementary policy to a subsequent re-establishment of other semi-natural habitats for the conservation of biodiversity and ecological functioning in agricultural landscapes.

scholarly journals Dipole patterns in tropical precipitation were pervasive across landmasses throughout Marine Isotope Stage 5

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Nilsson-Kerr ◽  
Pallavi Anand ◽  
Philip B. Holden ◽  
Steven C. Clemens ◽  
Melanie J. Leng
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Marine Isotope Stage ◽  
Convergence Zone ◽  
Inter Tropical Convergence Zone ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Tropical Precipitation ◽  
Rainfall Patterns ◽  
Marine Isotope Stage 5 ◽  
Climate Cooling ◽  
The Tropics

AbstractMost of Earth’s rain falls in the tropics, often in highly seasonal monsoon rains, which are thought to be coupled to the inter-hemispheric migrations of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone in response to the seasonal cycle of insolation. Yet characterization of tropical rainfall behaviour in the geologic past is poor. Here we combine new and existing hydroclimate records from six large-scale tropical regions with fully independent model-based rainfall reconstructions across the last interval of sustained warmth and ensuing climate cooling between 130 to 70 thousand years ago (Marine Isotope Stage 5). Our data-model approach reveals large-scale heterogeneous rainfall patterns in response to changes in climate. We note pervasive dipole-like tropical precipitation patterns, as well as different loci of precipitation throughout Marine Isotope Stage 5 than recorded in the Holocene. These rainfall patterns cannot be solely attributed to meridional shifts in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone.

scholarly journals Evaluating the role of contracting and expanding rainforest in initiating cycles of speciation across the Isthmus of Panama

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1742) ◽  
pp. 3520-3526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Tilston Smith ◽  
Amei Amei ◽  
John Klicka
Keyword(s):  
Bird Species ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Isthmus Of Panama ◽  
Species Pairs ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
High Species Richness ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
The Impact

Climatic and geological changes across time are presumed to have shaped the rich biodiversity of tropical regions. However, the impact climatic drying and subsequent tropical rainforest contraction had on speciation has been controversial because of inconsistent palaeoecological and genetic data. Despite the strong interest in examining the role of climatic change on speciation in the Neotropics there has been few comparative studies, particularly, those that include non-rainforest taxa. We used bird species that inhabit humid or dry habitats that dispersed across the Panamanian Isthmus to characterize temporal and spatial patterns of speciation across this barrier. Here, we show that these two assemblages of birds exhibit temporally different speciation time patterns that supports multiple cycles of speciation. Evidence for these cycles is further corroborated by the finding that both assemblages consist of ‘young’ and ‘old’ species, despite dry habitat species pairs being geographically more distant than pairs of humid habitat species. The matrix of humid and dry habitats in the tropics not only allows for the maintenance of high species richness, but additionally this study suggests that these environments may have promoted speciation. We conclude that differentially expanding and contracting distributions of dry and humid habitats was probably an important contributor to speciation in the tropics.

Aspects of the Water, Electrolyte and Carbohydrate Physiology of the Silvereye, Zosterops Lateralis (Aves).

1983 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 695 ◽  
Author(s):  
IJ Rooke ◽  
SD Bradshaw ◽  
RA Langworthy
Keyword(s):  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Tritiated Water ◽  
Free Water ◽  
Laboratory Studies ◽  
Turnover Rates ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Water Influx ◽  
Zosterops Lateralis ◽  
Total Body ◽  
Free Ranging

Total body water content (TBW) and TBW turnover were measured by means of tritiated water (HTO) in free-ranging populations of silvereyes, Zosterops lateralis, near Margaret River, W.A. Birds were studied in their natural habitats during spring and summer, and compared with a vineyard population in summer. In the natural habitat TBW content was found to be 77.6% in spring, which was not significantly different from that measured in summer (78.3%). Birds in vineyards in summer, however, were dehydrated, with a TBW content of 69.4%. Calculated rates of water influx for spring, summer and summer vineyards birds were 1.44,2.20 and 0.65 ml g.day-' respectively. These water turnover rates are much higher than those of any other bird yet studied. Dehydration was marked in the vineyard birds, with a significantly lower TBW content and an average net water loss of 0.63 ml day-'. Laboratory studies showed that silvereyes have a low tolerance to sodium loading. Their tolerance is, however, quite adequate for them to drink the most concentrated free water available to them in the field. Ingestion of concentrated sugar solutions of up to 25% did not provoke an osmotic diuresis and thus cannot account for the dehydration and negative water balance of vineyard birds.

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