The diversity and abundance of wild bees ensures the delivery of pollination services and the maintenance of ecosystem diversity. As previous studies carried out in Central Europe and the US have shown, bee diversity and abundance is influenced by the structure and the composition of the surrounding landscape. Comparable studies have so far not been carried out in the Mediterranean region. The present study examines the influence of Mediterranean landscape context on the diversity and abundance of wild bees. To do this, we sampled bees in 13 sites in olive groves on Lesvos Island, Greece. Bees were assigned to five categories consisting of three body size groups (small, medium and large bees), the single most abundant bee species (Lasioglossum marginatum) and all species combined. The influence of the landscape context on bee abundance and species richness was assessed at five radii (250, 500, 750, 1000 and 1250 m) from the centre of each site. We found that the abundance within bee groups was influenced differently by different landscape parameters and land covers, whereas species richness was unaffected. Generally, smaller bees' abundance was impacted by landscape parameters at smaller scales and larger bees at larger scales. The land cover that influenced bee abundance positively was olive grove, while phrygana, conifer forest, broad-leaved forest, cultivated land, rock, urban areas and sea had mostly negative or no impact. We stress the need for a holistic approach, including all land covers, when assessing the effects of landscape context on bee diversity and abundance in the Mediterranean.
Fire, a frequent disturbance in the Mediterranean, affects pollinator communities. We explored the response of major pollinator guilds to fire severity, across a fire‐severity gradient at different spatial scales. We show that the abundance of all pollinator groups responded to fire severity, and that bees and beetles showed in addition a significant species‐diversity response. Bees, sawflies, and wasps responded to fire severity at relatively small spatial scales (250–300 m), whereas flies and beetles responded at larger spatial scales. The response of bees, sawflies, and wasps was unimodal, as predicted by the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, whereas flies and beetles showed a negative response. A possible explanation is that the observed patterns (spatial scale and type of response) are driven by taxa‐specific ecological and life‐history traits, such as nesting preference and body size, as well as the availability of resources in the postfire landscape. Our observational study provides an insight into the effect of fire severity on pollinators. However, future research exploring the explicit link between the pre‐ and postfire landscape structure and pollinator traits and responses is required for further establishment and understanding of cause–effect relationships.
The majority of studies investigating the effects of landscape composition and configuration on bee populations have been conducted in regions of intensive agricultural production, ignoring regions which are dominated by seminatural habitats, such as the islands of the Aegean Archipelago. In addition, research so far has focused on the landscape impacts on bees sampled in cropped fields while the landscape effects on bees inhabiting seminatural habitats are understudied. Here, we investigate the impact of the landscape on wild bee assemblages in 66 phryganic (low scrubland) communities on 8 Aegean islands. We computed landscape metrics (total area and total perimeter-area ratio) in 4 concentric circles (250, 500, 750, and 1000 m) around the center of each bee sampling site including 3 habitat groups (namely phrygana, cultivated land, and natural forests). We further measured the local flower cover in 25 quadrats distributed randomly at the center of each sampling site. We found that the landscape scale is more important than the local scale in shaping abundance and species richness of bees. Furthermore, habitat configuration was more important than the total area of habitats, probably because it affects bees' movement across the landscape. Phrygana and natural forests had a positive effect on bee demographics, while cultivated land had a negative effect. This demonstrates that phryganic specialists drive bee assemblages in these seminatural landscapes. This finding, together with the shown importance of landscape scale, should be considered for the management of wild bees with special emphasis placed on the spatial configuration of seminatural habitats.
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