Are orchid bees useful indicators of the impacts of human disturbance?

Allen, Laura; Reeve, Richard; Nousek‐McGregor, Anna E.; Villacampa, Jaime; MacLeod, Ross

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.02.046

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…We quantified diversity using Reeve et al's (2016) framework implemented in the package rdiversity (Mitchell et al, 2020), which measures components of alpha, beta and gamma diversity over a continuum of viewpoint parameters, q (for details see Allen et al, 2019;Kirkpatrick et al, 2018;Kumar Sarker et al, 2019).…”

Section: Quantifying Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bird communities in African cocoa agroforestry are diverse but lack specialized insectivores

Jarrett

Smith

Claire

et al. 2021

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Section: Quantifying Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Bird communities in African cocoa agroforestry are diverse but lack specialized insectivores

Jarrett

Smith

Claire

et al. 2021

Journal of Applied Ecology

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“…annectans is h i g h l y a b u n d a n t i n l a r g e , p r e s e r v e d semideciduous forest fragments (Knoll and Penatti 2012;Ferronato et al 2018), the decline in males' abundance of this species recorded in the present study might indicate a species susceptibility to habitat fragmentation, mainly when it is considered the reduction in size of the forest fragments located in the region of the ESRP. Notwithstanding, the suggestion of orchid bee species as bioindicators of disturbed areas should be made with caution, mainly when only data on alpha diversity are available, as in the present study, since this parameter was revealed to be a weak metric to disturbance (Allen et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…It is possible that discrepancies concerning abundance values might be due to biases from samplers since each sampling made in the ESRP was conducted by a different researcher. Allen et al (2019) pointed out that these studies on surveys, especially those performed simultaneously in different areas, are subjected to biases arising from study design and the assistance of volunteers. In order to attenuate these problems, the authors randomised the location of the teams besides training and pairing experienced staff with inexperienced samplers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whilst females collect pollen and nectar for brood cell provisioning and resin (in some cases mud, faeces, and pieces of bark) to construct their nests, males feed on nectar and gather aromatic compounds from flowers to be presumably used to attract females (Dodson 1966;Michener 2007;Roubik and Hanson 2004). Due to this unique behaviour of perfume collection, several studies and surveys have been performed by using synthetic volatile compounds as scent baits to lure bee males (Dressler 1982;Raw 1989;Botsch et al 2017;Cândido et al 2018;Ferronato et al 2018;Allen et al 2019;Pinto et al 2019). Another remarkable feature of euglossine bees is their great dispersal capacity that allows them to cross more than 20 km in a day in continuous forested areas (Janzen 1971;Raw 1989;Pokorny et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Species turnover and low stability in a community of euglossine bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) sampled within 28 years in an urban forest fragment

et al. 2020

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Orchid bees are important long-distance pollinators in Neotropical rainforests. Despite their great flight capacity, some species avoid leaving the forest and might be then more vulnerable to the negative effects of habitat fragmentation. Here, we sampled the euglossine fauna from a forest fragment in an urban zone and compared the data to two surveys conducted in the same area 28 and 20 years before. Twelve species were sampled, and the highest values of both abundance and richness were recorded in the present sampling. Species turnover was observed with the resilient species Euglossa cordata and Eulaema nigrita presenting a high increase in number over the years whereas the prevalent species in the former samplings, Euglossa pleosticta , show the highest stable populations. Conversely, the abundance of Euglossa annectans decreased until zero in the last sampling. The studied orchid bee populations had a lower stability value when compared with other euglossine long-term surveys.Our results indicate that even a small forest fragment within an urbanised landscape and subjected to different levels of anthropogenic impacts harbours a diverse euglossine fauna. It is suggested that not only the preservation and maintenance of forest fragments in urban areas but also its restoration after environmental impacts are important procedures to support species-rich wildlife.

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“…In tropical forests, it has been shown that bee community composition changes with forest fragmentation and traits like tree-cavity nesting in Meliponini bees or loss of particular plant groups (i.e. epiphytes for Euglossini) are determinant in those changes (Allen et al, 2019;Brosi et al, 2007). We found a significant decline in richness but not in abundance, suggesting that in farms with less natural habitat in the landscape, vulnerable species are being lost but common species could be taking advantage of these resources provided by the crop.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex landscapes partially mitigate negative pesticide effects on tropical pollinator communities

Obregón

Guerrero

Stashenko

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Land-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 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 ug/kg), representing the molecule of greater risk for bees in this context. Pollinators 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.

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Are orchid bees useful indicators of the impacts of human disturbance?

Cited by 18 publications

References 84 publications

Bird communities in African cocoa agroforestry are diverse but lack specialized insectivores

Bird communities in African cocoa agroforestry are diverse but lack specialized insectivores

Species turnover and low stability in a community of euglossine bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) sampled within 28 years in an urban forest fragment

Complex landscapes partially mitigate negative pesticide effects on tropical pollinator communities

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