Small areas of wildflower grassland in urban areas support significant species richness and abundance of pollinating insects

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-119
Author(s):  
Louise Hutchinson ◽  
John Norrey ◽  
Alex Lockton ◽  
Emma Coulthard
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Solitary Bees ◽  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Floral Resources ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Small Areas ◽  
Pollinating Insects

1. Diversity of invertebrate pollinators is essential in supporting flowering plant species richness, including agricultural crops. In the UK, losses are reported for bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths. Urban green spaces are essential refugia for these groups, and restoration of these areas can improve pollinator diversity through improved floral resources.<br/> 2. Our research aimed to compare two differently managed areas of urban amenity grassland for their insect pollinators, with transect surveys of butterflies, bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies.<br/> 3. Our results revealed that even in an urban matrix, a small area of wildflower meadow had significantly higher insect abundance and species richness than a comparable amenity grassland. Both abundance and species richness of pollinating insects was positively related to floral species richness.<br/> 4. The wildflower grassland supported a number of notable solitary bee species and numerous hoverflies, although visitation by solitary bees was confined to only a small number of flowering plants, exhibiting visitation specialisation; however many of these plant species were not visited by other taxa.

scholarly journals Flowers increase ecosystem biodiversity in Midwestern prairies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Michael Goodman ◽  
Diane M Debinski ◽  
Nicholas J Lyon
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Vegetation Height ◽  
South Central ◽  
Flowering Plant Species

Loss of biodiversity due to anthropogenic factors, such as climate change and habitat conversion or loss, is among the largest problems affecting many native ecosystems today. Declines in plant diversity can often have detrimental effects on other forms of biodiversity through cascading trophic systems and negatively impact large-scale ecosystem processes. This is particularly relevant in grassland ecosystems, where in undisturbed systems grasses, forbs, and legumes coexist in diverse communities. Previous studies have explored the hypothesis that loss of plant species negatively impacts biodiversity of other trophic groups and can diminish whole ecosystem functions. In this study we tested how flowering plant species richness influenced arthropod order richness on eight sites in the Grand River Grasslands of south central Iowa, and whether that relationship depended on the vegetation height at which arthropods were sampled. We hypothesized that (1) flowering plant species richness would positively affect arthropod order richness, and that (2) a greater number of arthropod orders would be found 2 centimeters above the ground (hereafter “low”) than 1 meter above the ground (hereafter “high”) at given equal flowering plant species richness. With greater richness of flowering plant species, it is likely that this variety of vegetation supplies a greater amount of habitat available for arthropod communities. Counter to our expectations, flowering plant species richness was not significantly correlated with total arthropod order richness (p = 0.0785). However, richness of “low” arthropod order did increase with an increase in nectar richness (p = 0.0463). Further research including all plant species (rather than merely nectar producing species) and identifying arthropods to a finer taxonomic level may provide more conclusive results supporting our hypotheses. Results of such studies would contribute to the success of biodiversity conservation efforts that focus on bottom-up management practices that can enhance ecosystem functioning at higher trophic levels.

scholarly journals Urban fragmentation leads to lower floral diversity, with knock-on impacts on bee biodiversity

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Theodorou ◽  
Sarah-Christine Herbst ◽  
Belinda Kahnt ◽  
Patricia Landaverde-González ◽  
Lucie M. Baltz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Functional Trait ◽  
Flowering Plants ◽  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Floral Diversity ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Species Richness And Abundance

AbstractBees and flowering plants are two closely interacting groups of organisms. Habitat loss and fragmentation associated with urbanisation are major threats to both partners. Yet how and why bee and floral richness and diversity co-vary within the urban landscape remain unclear. Here, we sampled bees and flowering plants in urban green spaces to investigate how bee and flowering plant species richness, their phylogenetic diversity and pollination-relevant functional trait diversity influence each other in response to urban fragmentation. As expected, bee abundance and richness were positively related to flowering plant richness, with bee body size (but not bee richness and diversity) increasing with nectar-holder depth of flowering plants. Causal modelling indicated that bottom-up effects dictated patterns of bee-flower relationships, with urban fragmentation diminishing flowering plants richness and thereby indirectly reducing bee species richness and abundance. The close relationship between bees and flowering plants highlights the risks of their parallel declines in response to land-use change within the urban landscape.

Increased plant species richness associates with greater soil bacterial diversity in urban green spaces

2020 ◽  
pp. 110425
Author(s):  
Zdravko Baruch ◽  
Craig Liddicoat ◽  
Christian Cando-Dumancela ◽  
Mark Laws ◽  
Hamish Morelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Bacterial Diversity ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Soil Bacterial Diversity ◽  
Urban Green ◽  
Urban Green Spaces ◽  
Soil Bacterial

The Effects of Integrated Vegetation Management on Richness of Native Compatible Flowering Plants and abundance of Noncompatible Tree Species on a Right-of-Way in Central Pennsylvania, USA

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 395-401
Author(s):  
Carolyn Mahan ◽  
Bradley Ross ◽  
Richard Yahner
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Vegetation Management ◽  
Flowering Plants ◽  
Flowering Plant ◽  
Right Of Way ◽  
Central Pennsylvania ◽  
Herbicide Mixtures ◽  
Flowering Plant Species

We examined the effects of integrated vegetation management (IVM) and nonselective mechanical removal techniques (hand cutting and mowing) on the richness and abundance of native compatible flowering plants and noncompatible trees on an electric transmission line right-of-way in central Pennsylvania, USA. Our study focused on native flowering plants to help determine how different vegetation management techniques may affect native wildlife communities. We found no correlation between amount of herbicide applied and native flowering plant species richness or tree abundance. We found that the richness of native flowering plants did not differ between plots treated with an IVM herbicide approach and those that were mechanically treated (t = 1.06, df = 1, p = 0.31). However, mechanically treated plots had significantly higher abundance of trees than IVM plots (t = 3.10, df = 1, p = 0.009). We found that plots that were treated with herbicide mixtures that contained glyphosate in 2012 had lower native flowering plant species richness in 2016 than those treated with herbicide mixtures that did not contain glyphosate (t = −2.44, df = 1, p = 0.04). Our study indicates that long-term IVM approaches support native flowering plant species richness while limiting tree abundance under electric transmission line right-of-way. However, further study is needed to determine if the herbicide type and method (selective versus broadcast) of application affects species richness of native flowering plant communities.

scholarly journals Floral Species Richness Correlates with Changes in the Nutritional Quality of Larval Diets in a Stingless Bee

Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz Trinkl ◽  
Benjamin F. Kaluza ◽  
Helen Wallace ◽  
Tim A. Heard ◽  
Alexander Keller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Fatty Acid ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Nutritional Quality ◽  
Plant Species Richness ◽  
Floral Resources ◽  
Surrounding Environment ◽  
Floral Diversity ◽  
Omega 6

Bees need food of appropriate nutritional quality to maintain their metabolic functions. They largely obtain all required nutrients from floral resources, i.e., pollen and nectar. However, the diversity, composition and nutritional quality of floral resources varies with the surrounding environment and can be strongly altered in human-impacted habitats. We investigated whether differences in plant species richness as found in the surrounding environment correlated with variation in the floral diversity and nutritional quality of larval provisions (i.e., mixtures of pollen, nectar and salivary secretions) composed by the mass-provisioning stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria (Apidae: Meliponini). We found that the floral diversity of larval provisions increased with increasing plant species richness. The sucrose and fat (total fatty acid) content and the proportion and concentration of the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid decreased, whereas the proportion of the omega-3 fatty acid linolenic acid increased with increasing plant species richness. Protein (total amino acid) content and amino acid composition did not change. The protein to fat (P:F) ratio, known to affect bee foraging, increased on average by more than 40% from plantations to forests and gardens, while the omega-6:3 ratio, known to negatively affect cognitive performance, decreased with increasing plant species richness. Our results suggest that plant species richness may support T. carbonaria colonies by providing not only a continuous resource supply (as shown in a previous study), but also floral resources of high nutritional quality.

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