Pollinator-flower interactions in gardens during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown of 2020

Abstract

During the main COVID-19 global pandemic lockdown period of 2020 an impromptu set of pollination ecologists came together via social media and personal contacts to carry out standardised surveys of the flower visits and plants in gardens. The surveys involved 67 rural, suburban and urban gardens, of various sizes, ranging from 61.18° North in Norway to 37.96° South in Australia, resulting in a data set of 25,174 rows, with each row being a unique interaction record for that date/site/plant species, and comprising almost 47,000 visits to flowers, as well as records of flowers that were not visited by pollinators, for over 1,000 species and varieties belonging to more than 460 genera and 96 plant families. The more than 650 species of flower visitors belong to 12 orders of invertebrates and four of vertebrates. In this first publication from the project, we present a brief description of the data and make it freely available for any researchers to use in the future, the only restriction being that they cite this paper in the first instance. The data generated from these global surveys will provide scientific evidence to help us understand the role that private gardens (in urban, rural and suburban areas) can play in conserving insect pollinators and identify management actions to enhance their potential.

Assessing five decades of garden bee studies

“…Bees from the family Stenotritidae were not represented. This is not surprising since this family is comprised of 21 species isolated to Australia (Danforth et al, 2019), although we did include four studies with sites located in Australia in our review (Threlfall et al, 2015;Makinson et al, 2017;Ollerton et al, 2022;Prendergast et al, 2022). While there are estimated to be over 20,000 bee species worldwide (Danforth et al, 2019;Orr et al, 2021), urban areas can present harsh conditions for many bees (Cardoso and Gonçalves, 2018), including heat stress (Hamblin et al, 2017), homogenization of forage plants (Groffman et al, 2014), increased landscape disturbance (Threlfall et al, 2015;Lerman and Milam, 2016), competition from exotic species (LeCroy et al, 2020), and a decrease in forage and nesting site availability (Bates et al, 2011;Choate et al, 2018;Birdshire et al, 2020;Lanner et al, 2020).…”

“…Another six papers were included after searching the bibliographies of these 18 papers for additional references. Four papers were added during the review process, including two that were published after our initial literature search (Ollerton et al, 2022;Prendergast et al, 2022). The Ollerton et al (2022) paper was a collaborative effort across the globe by different scientists, and some sites were gardens; we were able to include 40 garden sites from this paper.…”

“…Four papers were added during the review process, including two that were published after our initial literature search (Ollerton et al, 2022;Prendergast et al, 2022). The Ollerton et al (2022) paper was a collaborative effort across the globe by different scientists, and some sites were gardens; we were able to include 40 garden sites from this paper. Two papers (Halder et al, 2013;Del Toro and Ribbons, 2020) were later removed from the metadataset due to concerns related to species identifications.…”

“…. with the goal of attracting local native California bee species to assess emerging patterns of diversity" (Wojcik et al, 2008) Archer, 1990Fetridge et al, 2008;Wojcik et al, 2008;Pawelek et al, 2009;Owen, 2010;Choate et al, 2018;Ollerton et al, 2022 Comparative landscape assessment…”

“…. these results suggest that urban development can be designed to promote the conservation of bees" (Hostetler and McIntyre, 2001) Hostetler and McIntyre, 2001;Fetridge et al, 2008;Matteson et al, 2008;Wojcik et al, 2008;Colla et al, 2009;Frankie et al, 2009;Gotlieb et al, 2011;Threlfall et al, 2015;Lerman and Milam, 2016;Langellotto et al, 2018;Sivakoff et al, 2018;Baldock et al, 2019;Lanner et al, 2020;Ollerton et al, 2022 Effects of urbanization Studies that examined the impacts of urban features such as impervious surfaces on bee communities, or were on an urban-rural gradient ". .…”