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Stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in wild native honeybees: the influence of land use and climate

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Abstract

The eastern hive bee Apis cerana is a major honeybee species in Asia providing numerous ecosystem services. Understanding how much the honeybees depend on natural and human-influenced plants and landscapes in different climates is important could contribute to evaluate how wild honeybees use food resources and to measure the ecosystem services. We investigated the effects of land use and climate changes on stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in wild populations of A. cerana. In populations from 139 individual sites throughout Japan, we measured nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) stable isotope ratios and analyzed the effects of land use and climate. Our results showed that forested areas and annual precipitation had significant effects on δ15N, and that paddy fields and urban areas had significant effects on δ13C. These results suggest that A. cerana sensibly uses available food resources in the various environments and that stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios clearly reflect the effects of land use and climate changes on the populations of A. cerana. Thus, stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in A. cerana, which widely distributes in Asia, can be used as indicators of the environments, such as land use and climate, of an area within its foraging range.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the members of Hachi-channel, J. Fujie, K. Goka, H. Goto, L. G. Kawaguchi, T. Matsumura, M. Mizota, M. Nomura, S. Sato, M Sueyoshi, K. Tabuchi, A. Ueda, K. Yamagishi, T. Yokoi, and K. Watanabe, for assisting with our field sampling and K. Takano and S Kitajima for assisting with our laboratory work. This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 25740051 and Global Environment Research Funds S-9 and 5-1407 from the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

Author contributions

HT, HI, SS, and KO conceived and designed the study. HT, SS, KM, and KO collected the data. HI and MY assembled the stable isotope data and the environmental variables, respectively. TN analyzed the data. HT, HI, and TN wrote the draft, and all parties commented on and edited the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Hisatomo Taki, Teruyoshi Nagamitsu, Mika Yasuda & Kimiko Okabe

  2. Faculty of Agricultural and Life Science, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki, Aomori, Japan

    Hiroshi Ikeda

  3. Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

    Shinji Sugiura & Kaoru Maeto

Authors
  1. Hisatomo Taki
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  2. Hiroshi Ikeda
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  3. Teruyoshi Nagamitsu
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  4. Mika Yasuda
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  5. Shinji Sugiura
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  6. Kaoru Maeto
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  7. Kimiko Okabe
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Correspondence to Hisatomo Taki.

Additional information

Communicated by Eckehard Brockerhoff, Hervé Jactel and Ian Thompson.

This is part of the special issue on ‘Forest biodiversity and ecosystem services’.

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Taki, H., Ikeda, H., Nagamitsu, T. et al. Stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in wild native honeybees: the influence of land use and climate. Biodivers Conserv 26, 3157–3166 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1114-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1114-x

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