Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Native plants are the bee’s knees: local and landscape predictors of bee richness and abundance in backyard gardens

  • Published:
Urban Ecosystems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Urban gardens may support bees by providing resources in otherwise resource-poor environments. However, it is unclear whether urban, backyard gardens with native plants will support more bees than gardens without native plants. We examined backyard gardens in northwestern Ohio to ask: 1) Does bee diversity, abundance, and community composition differ in backyard gardens with and without native plants? 2) What characteristics of backyard gardens and land cover in the surrounding landscape correlate with changes in the bee community? 3) Do bees in backyard gardens respond more strongly to local or landscape factors? We sampled bees with pan trapping, netting, and direct observation. We examined vegetation characteristics and land cover in 500 m, 1 km, and 2 km buffers surrounding each garden. Abundance of all bees, native bees, and cavity-nesting bees (but not ground-nesting bees) was greater in native plant gardens but only richness of cavity-nesting bees differed in gardens with and without native plants. Bee community composition differed in gardens with and without native plants. Overall, bee richness and abundance were positively correlated with local characteristics of backyard gardens, such as increased floral abundance, taller vegetation, more cover by woody plants, less cover by grass, and larger vegetable gardens. Differences in the amount of forest, open space, and wetlands surrounding gardens influenced abundance of cavity- and ground-nesting bees, but at different spatial scales. Thus, presence of native plants, and local and landscape characteristics might play important roles in maintaining bee diversity within urban areas.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahrné K, Bengtsson J, Elmqvist T (2009) Bumble bees (Bombus spp) along a gradient of increasing urbanization. PLoS ONE 4:e5574

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Angold PG, Sadler JP, Hill MO, Pullin A, Rushton S, Austin K, Small E, Wood B, Wadsworth R, Sanderson R, Thompson K (2006) Biodiversity in urban habitat patches. Sci Total Environ 360:196–204

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Arscott DB, Jackson JK, Kratzer EB (2006) Role of rarity and taxonomic resolution in a regional and spatial analysis of stream macroinvertebrates. J N Am Benthol Soc 25:977–997

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brosi BJ, Daily GC, Shih TM, Oviedo F, Durán G (2008) The effects of forest fragmentation on bee communities in tropical countryside. J Appl Eco 45:773–783

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown CJ, Albrecht C (2001) The effect of tropical deforestation on stingless bees of the genus Melipona (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponni) in central Rondonia, Brazil. J Biogeogr 28:623–634

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cane JH, Minckley RL, Kervin LJ, Roulston TH, Williams NM (2006) Complex responses within a desert bee guild (Hymenoptera: Apiformes) to urban habitat fragmentation. Ecol Appl 16:632–644

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Colwell RK (2009) EstimateS: Statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples. Version 8.2. User’s Guide and application published at: http://purl.oclc.org/estimates

  • Czech B, Krausman P, Devers P (2007) Economic associations among cases of species endangerment in the United States. Bioscience 50:593–601

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daily G (1997) Nature’s services. Societal dependence on natural ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, D.C

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickman CR (1987) Habitat fragmentation and vertebrate species richness in an urban environment. J Appl Ecol 24:337–351

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dormann CF, McPherson JM, Araújo MB, Bivand R, Bolliger J, Carl G, Davies RG, Hirzel A, Jetz W, Kissling WD, Kühn I, Ohlemüller R, Peres-Neto PR, Reineking B, Schröder B, Schurr FM, Wilson R (2007) Methods to account for spatial autocorrelation in the analysis of species distributional data: a review. Ecography 30:609–628

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fahrig L (2003) Effects of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 34:487–515

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fetridge ED, Ascher JS, Langellotto GA (2008) The bee fauna of residential gardens in a suburb of New York City (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Ann Entomol Soc Am 101:1067–1077

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankie GW, Ehler LE (1978) Ecology of insects in urban environments. Ann Rev Entomol 23:367–387

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankie GW, Thorp RW, Schindler M, Hernandez J, Ertter B, Rizzardi M (2005) Ecological patterns of bees and their host ornamental flowers in two northern California cities. J Kans Entomol Soc 78:227–246

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankie GW, Thorp RW, Pawelek JC, Hernandez J, Colville R (2009) Urban bee diversity in a small residential garden in northern California. J Hymenopt Res 18:368–379

    Google Scholar 

  • Gathmann A, Tscharntke T (2002) Foraging ranges of solitary bees. J Anim Ecol 71:757–764

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geslin B, Gauzens B, Thébault E, Dajoz I (2013) Plant pollinator networks along a gradient of urbanisation. PLoS ONE 8:e63421

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Goddard MA, Dougill AJ, Benton TG (2010) Scaling up from gardens: biodiversity conervation in urban environments. Trends Ecol Evol 25:90–98

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Goulson D, Stout JC (2001) Homing ability of the bumble bee Bombus terrestris (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Apidologie 32:105–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goulson D, Lye GC, Darvill B (2008) Decline and conservation of bumble bees. Annu Rev Entomol 53:191–208

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hämmer Ø, Harper DAT, Ryan PD (2001) PAST: Paleontological statistics software package for education and data analysis. Palaeontol Electron 4:1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Heard MS, Carvell C, Carreck NL, Rothery P, Osborne JL, Bourke AFG (2007) Landscape context not patch size determines bumble-bee density on flower mixes sown for agri-environment schemes. Biol Lett 3:638–641

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez JL, Frankie GW, Thorp RW (2009) Ecology of urban bees: a review of current knowledge and directions for future study. Cities Environ 2:1–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Hines HM, Hendrix SD (2005) Bumble bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) diversity and abundance in tallgrass prairie patches: Effects of local and landscape floral resources. Environ Entomol 34:1477–1484

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Homer C, Huang CQ, Yang LM, Wylie B, Coan M (2004) Development of a 2001 national land-cover database for the United States. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 70:829–840

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hothorn T, Hornik K, Zeileis A (2006) Unbiased recursive partitioning: a conditional inference framework. J Comp Graph Stat 15:651–674

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jha S, Vandermeer JH (2010) Impacts of coffee agroforestry management on tropical bee communities. Biol Cons 143:1423–1431

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein AM, Steffan–Dewenter I, Tscharntke T (2003) Fruit set of highland coffee increases with the diversity of pollinating bees. Proc R Soc B 270:955–961

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kremen C, Williams NM, Bugg RL, Fay JP, Thorp RW (2004) The area requirements of an ecosystem service: crop pollination by native bee communities in California. Ecol Lett 7:1109–1119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kruess A, Tscharntke T (2002) Grazing intensity and the diversity of grasshoppers, butterflies, and trap-nesting bees and wasps. Conserv Biol 16:1570–1580

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larson JL, Redmond CT, Potter DA (2013) Assessing insecticide hazard to bumble bees foraging on flowering weeds in treated lawns. PLoS ONE 8(6):e66375

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • LeBuhn G, Droege S, Williams N, Minckley R, Griswold T, Kremen C, Messinger O, Cane J, Roulston T, Parker F, Tepedino V, Buchmann S (2003) A standardized method for monitoring bee populations - the bee inventory plot. <http://www.online.sfsu.edu/~beeplot/>

  • Losey J, Vaughan M (2006) The economic value of ecological services provided by insects. Bioscience 56:311–323

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matteson KC, Langellotto GA (2010) Determinates of inner city butterfly and bee species richness. Urban Ecosyst 13:333–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matteson KC, Langellotto GA (2011) Small scale additions of native plants fail to increase beneficial insect richness in urban gardens. Insect Conserv Diver 4:89–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matteson KC, Ascher JS, Lanellotto GA (2008) Bee richness and abundance in New York City urban gardens. Ann Entomol Soc Am 101:140–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matteson KC, Grace JB, Minor ES (2012) Direct and indirect effects of land use on floral resources and flower-visiting insects across an urban landscape. Oikos 122:682–694

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFrederick QS, LeBuhn G (2006) Are urban parks refuges for bumble bees Bombus spp. (Hymenoptera: Apidae)? Biol Conserv 129:372–382

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McIntyre NE, Hostetler ME (2001) Effects of urban land use on pollinator (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) communities in a desert metropolis. Basic Appl Ecol 2:209–218

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McIntyre NE, Rango J, Fagan WF, Faeth SH (2001) Ground arthropod community structure in a heterogeneous urban environment. Landscape Urban Plann 52:257–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKinney ML (2008) Effects of urbanization on species richness: a review of plants and animals. Urban Ecosyst 11:161–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moron D, Szentgyorgyi H, Wantuch M, Celary W, Westphal C, Settele J, Woyciechowski M (2008) Diversity of wild bees in wet meadows: implications for conservation. Wetlands 28:975–983

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neame LA, Griswold T, Elle E (2013) Pollinator nesting guilds respond differently to urban habitat fragmentation in an oak-savannah ecosystem. Insect Conserv Diver 6:57–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ockinger E, Smith HG (2007) Semi-natural grasslands as population sources for pollinating insects in agricultural landscapes. J Appl Ecol 44:50–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olden JD, Lawler JJ, Poff NL (2008) Machine learning methods without tears: a primer for ecologists. Q Rev Biol 83:171–193

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pawelek JC, Frankie GW, Thorp RW, Przybylski M (2009) Modification of a community garden to attract native bee pollinators in urban San Luis Obispo, California. Cities Environ 2:1–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Philpott SM (2010) A canopy dominant ant affects twig nesting ant assembly in coffee agroecosystems. Oikos 119:1954–1960

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinheiro J, Bates D, DebRoy S, Sarkar, D, and the R Development Core Team (2013) nlme: Linear and Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models. R package version 3.1–102

  • Potts SG, Biesmeijer JC, Kremen C, Neumann P, Schweiger O, Kunin WE (2010) Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers. Trends Ecol Evol 25:345–353

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • R Development Core Team (2011) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org/

  • Richards RT, Chambers JC, Ross C (1998) Use of native plants on federal lands: policy and practice. J Range Manage 51:625–632

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudd H, Vala J, Schaefer V (2002) Importance of backyard habitat in a comprehensive biodiversity strategy: a connectivity analysis of urban greenspaces. Restoration Ecol 10:368–375

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savard JL, Clergeau P, Mennechez G (2000) Biodiversity concepts and urban ecosystems. Landscape Urban Plann 48:131–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith RM, Thompson K, Hodgson PH, Warren PH, Gaston KJ (2005) Urban domestic gardens (IX): Composition and richness of the vascular plant flora, and implications for native biodiversity. Biol Conserv 129:312–322

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steffan-Dewenter I, Munzenberg U, Burger C, Thies C, Tscharntke T (2002) Scale-dependent effects of landscape cintext on three pollinator guilds. Ecology 83:1421–1432

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strobl C, Malley J, Tutz J, Gerhard (2009) An introduction to recursive partitioning: rationale, application, and characteristics of classification and regression trees, bagging, and random forests. Psychol Meth 14:323–348

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thies C, Tscharntke T (1999) Landscape structure and biological control in agroecosystems. Science 285:893–895

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tommasi D, Miro A, Higo HA, Winston ML (2004) Bee diversity and abundace in an urban setting. Can Entomol 136:851–869

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tuell JK, Fiedler AK, Landis D, Issacs R (2008) Visitation by wild and managed bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) to Eastern U.S. native plants for the use in conservation programs. Environ Entomol 37:707–718

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) (2007) State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth. 108pp

  • Welzel K (2011) Pollination by native bee communities in Berkeley, California. Berkeley Sci J 14:1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams NM, Crone EE, Roulston TH, Minckley RL, Packer L, Potts SG (2010) Ecological and life-history traits predict bee species responses to environmental disturbances. Biol Conserv 143:2280–2291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Winfree R, Griswold T, Kremen C (2007) Effect of human disturbance on bee communities in a forested ecosystem. Conserv Biol 21:213–223

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wojcik VA, Frankie GW, Thorp RW, Hernandez JL (2008) Seasonality in bees and their floral resource plants at a constructed urban bee habitat in Berkeley, California. J Kans Entomol Soc 81:15–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank P. Bichier, E. Bridi, T. Crail, M. Coulter, D. Howard, L. Howard, K. Kimbel, A. Krause, K. Lindelof, B. Pardee, J. Pardee, M. Pardee, A. Pryor, P. Ross, A. Sphar, M. Szuberla, M. Weintraub, Toledo GROWS, the Toledo Botanical Garden, and the Stranahan Arboretum for access to their gardens for the research project. We thank S. Jha, J. Gibbs, and S. Droege for help with methodology and bee identification. R. Becker provided assistance with the GIS and land cover classification. S. Jha, L. Moorhead and S. Cusser provided helpful comments on the manuscript. Funding was provided through the NSF grant DBI-0829252 (Undergraduate Research and Mentoring in Environmental Biology at the Land-Lake Interface) and the Department on Environmental Sciences at the University of Toledo.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Gabriella L. Pardee

    Present address: Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, 43606, USA

    Gabriella L. Pardee & Stacy M. Philpott

  2. Environmental Studies Department, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA

    Stacy M. Philpott

Authors
  1. Gabriella L. Pardee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Stacy M. Philpott
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stacy M. Philpott.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Table S1

(DOCX 24 kb)

Table S2

(DOCX 24 kb)

Table S3

(DOCX 25 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pardee, G.L., Philpott, S.M. Native plants are the bee’s knees: local and landscape predictors of bee richness and abundance in backyard gardens. Urban Ecosyst 17, 641–659 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-014-0349-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-014-0349-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation