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Habitat, spatial and temporal drivers of diversity patterns in a wild bee assemblage

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Abstract

Across Europe conservation actions have been implemented to mitigate the decline of pollinators in agricultural landscapes. However, recent concerns have appeared about their efficiency to promote pollinator diversity. To increase the efficiency of these interventions, one must acquire a better knowledge of the target species diversity patterns and its sources of variations at different spatial and temporal scales. This study sets out to identify the main sources of variation in wild bee assemblages at a regional scale (450 km2) in mass-flowering crops and semi-natural habitats. During three consecutive sampling years, we monitored bee diversity and its temporal and spatial turnovers. We show that an intensive agricultural landscape in western France can hold nearly 200 wild bee species at a regional scale, i.e. 20 % of the whole bee fauna known in mainland France. Wild bee diversity was 3–4 times lower in oleaginous crops than in semi-natural habitats, with a substantial number of these being social and gregarious species. Spatial and seasonal species turnover in semi-natural habitats explained 28.6 and 34.3 %, respectively, of regional species richness. Given the importance of the spatial component of the bee diversity turnover, we suggest wild bee conservation efforts should be carried out at relevant spatial scales. The spatial turnover was estimated to be steeper within 50 km2 scales. This provides an order of magnitude for the spatial extent of relevant conservation units within which one may concentrate conservation efforts in order to optimise the number of species promoted per surface area.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to J. Knapp and J. Osborne for thorough text correction and improvement. B. Vaissière provided expert support at all stages of the study, including the design and conception of the survey and the management of specimen collection and identification. We are also grateful to J. Aptel, M. Chabirand, A. Haefflinger, C. Maffre and C. Toulet for field assistance; H. Dathe, E. Dufrêne, R. Fonfria, D. Genoud, M. Kuhlmann, G. Le Goff, D. Michez, A. Pauly, S. Risch for bee identification to specie level; F. Herzog, D. Michez and I. Dajoz for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. We also thank the farmers of the study area for allowing us to carry out surveys in their fields. This work was funded by the French Ministry of Agriculture (POLINOV, CASDAR Program no 9035) and an ANRT CIFRE Ph.D. grant allocated to OR. This paper is dedicated in memoriam of Robert Fonfria.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ITSAP-Institut de l’abeille - UMT PrADE, 228 route de l’Aérodrome, Domaine Saint Paul, Site Agroparc, CS 40509, 84914, Avignon Cedex 9, France

    Orianne Rollin

  2. UMT Protection des Abeilles dans l’Environnement, 228 route de l’Aérodrome, Domaine Saint Paul, Site Agroparc, CS 40509, 84914, Avignon Cedex 9, France

    Orianne Rollin, Laurent Guilbaud & Mickaël Henry

  3. INRA, UR 406 Abeilles et Environnement, Domaine Saint Paul, Site Agroparc, CS 40509, 84914, Avignon, France

    Laura Fortel, Laurent Guilbaud & Mickaël Henry

  4. Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, CNRS & Université de la Rochelle, UMR 7372, 79360, Beauvoir-Sur-Niort, France

    Vincent Bretagnolle

  5. LTER « Zone Atelier Plaine & Val de Sèvre », Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, CNRS, 79360, Villiers-En-Bois, France

    Vincent Bretagnolle

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  1. Orianne Rollin
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  2. Vincent Bretagnolle
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Correspondence to Orianne Rollin.

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Communicated by Jens Wolfgang Dauber.

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Rollin, O., Bretagnolle, V., Fortel, L. et al. Habitat, spatial and temporal drivers of diversity patterns in a wild bee assemblage. Biodivers Conserv 24, 1195–1214 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0852-x

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