Unforb-gettable, though near or farm: Bee flower preference in the northern Great Plains

Hayley Limes, Autumn Smart Author

07/28/2021 Added

11 Plays

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This research determined bee flowering plant preferences in order to optimize conservation planting efforts

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[00:00:00.300]Hi, my name is Hayley, and this is my poster unforb-gettable though near or farm,
[00:00:04.590]Bee flower preference in the Northern great Plains.
[00:00:08.850]The Northern great Plains contains habitat that is critical for populations of
[00:00:12.180]both wild and managed bees.
[00:00:14.070]However large-scale land use change has led to a loss of flowering plants that
[00:00:17.760]are crucial to these insects. Data used in this study was originally collected to
[00:00:21.870]determine the amount of floral resources available to both wild and managed bees.
[00:00:26.010]However, it is also useful in determining their floral preferences. By knowing these
[00:00:30.330]conservation planting efforts can be tailored to maximize benefits to wild and
[00:00:34.530]or domestic bees.
[00:00:37.140]The goals of this project were to visualize the availability of floral resources
[00:00:40.800]to wild and managed bees, summarize the plant usage
[00:00:43.350]seen by these bees, as well as to determine these bees most preferred
[00:00:47.760]plant species while considering covariates such as the native status of the
[00:00:51.450]plant, the bee type being wild or honey bees,
[00:00:54.600]and the seasonal availability of such plants. Data used in this project was
[00:00:59.070]collected in the summers of 2015 through 2019.
[00:01:02.370]As the study was being run concurrently to another one,
[00:01:05.280]focused on honey bee health transects were all within four kilometers of
[00:01:09.240]commercial honey bee apiaries.
[00:01:12.270]Three rounds of survey were conducted each summer to account for
[00:01:15.810]varying bloom times of different species.
[00:01:17.460]Figure one shows a map of the transect sites and figure two shows an example
[00:01:21.060]transect. In each transect,
[00:01:24.810]the number of flowering stems of each species were recorded along with a number
[00:01:28.170]of wild and honey bees observed visiting. Preference was then determined by
[00:01:32.190]ranking the usage of a plant, or how many bees visited, as well as the abundance
[00:01:36.300]or how many stems it had.
[00:01:38.220]The difference between these two rankings indicated preference.
[00:01:41.130]Lower scores were more preferred as it showed a higher usage on fewer stems.
[00:01:45.270]R was then used to analyze data and create graphics.
[00:01:49.650]Figure 4 is a bar plot of the mean stems per transect of each of the top
[00:01:53.280]40 most abundant species. Alfalfa yellow, sweet clover,
[00:01:57.480]and white sweet clover, the top three most abundant taxa, are volunteer species.
[00:02:01.710]These often grow in dense patches and field margins and a roadside ditches
[00:02:05.310]without needing to be seated.
[00:02:07.200]This makes them both abundant and highly utilized by pollinators.
[00:02:12.690]This Sankey diagram depicts the total number of bee visitations per plant
[00:02:16.440]species over the course of our survey.
[00:02:18.570]There is a higher number of honey bee visitations observed due to the proximity
[00:02:22.920]of commercial apiaries.
[00:02:25.320]Wild bee visitation was seen on 76 of 92 plant species. Meanwhile,
[00:02:29.370]honey bees were observed on 72 of 92 plant species.
[00:02:33.330]There were 20 species of visited only by wild bees and 16 visited only by
[00:02:37.590]honey bees. As the species of wild bees were not recorded
[00:02:41.400]the plant usage of individual wild bee species cannot be estimated.
[00:02:44.880]This may account for the wider range of utilizations seen in the wild bee
[00:02:48.000]category. However, across species,
[00:02:50.280]there was a broader floral usage by wild bees, while
[00:02:52.860]honey bee utilization aligns more with stem abundance. Tables
[00:02:56.550]one and two show the top five most preferred species by both wild and honey bees.
[00:03:01.150]Overlap was prevalent in the species preferred by both bee types suggesting that
[00:03:04.750]in areas with high managed bee populations, both groups
[00:03:07.690]utilize similar resources,
[00:03:10.360]preferred species shifted by season likely due to varying bloom times. Wild bee
[00:03:14.560]preference shifted more between seasons while honey bees showed a greater
[00:03:17.410]preference for the same plants.
[00:03:19.300]This aligns with usage trends in which honey bees used plants with high stem,
[00:03:22.870]abundance and wild bees saw more varied distribution. However,
[00:03:26.380]only one of the most utilized species appeared in the most preferred species.
[00:03:30.850]Both honey bees and wild bees showed a preference for native plants suggesting
[00:03:34.630]that these might be more effective in conservation seed mixes.
[00:03:38.680]While high usage was observed on volunteer species, such as alfalfa and yellow
[00:03:42.280]sweet clover, these species were not highly preferred.
[00:03:45.280]Effective conservation efforts should take this into account while seeding in
[00:03:48.880]order to better meet their conservation goals.
[00:03:52.030]Many of the highly preferred species in this study had fewer than five stems
[00:03:55.180]recorded. For one example, 1 stem might be recorded and 1 bee observed.
[00:03:59.890]This might give a relatively high preference.
[00:04:01.750]And that in theory is a sign that this plant would be more preferred than
[00:04:04.930]one with 15 stems and 1 bee sighted. However,
[00:04:08.140]due to the limited nature of this data,
[00:04:09.940]the actual usage of this species is still unknown.
[00:04:12.760]Further research is needed to determine the strength of preference for such
[00:04:15.670]plants. Finally, as the study was conducted near commercial apiaries,
[00:04:20.650]there was a high proportion of honey bees observed. It is still unknown,
[00:04:23.560]whether wild bees and managed bees face competition for floral resources,
[00:04:27.700]especially in areas dominated by plant species preferred by both bee types.
[00:04:31.930]Further experiments could shift the number of honey bees in an area with large
[00:04:34.870]amounts of preferred flowers and examine any changes in plant preference.
[00:04:39.730]Data used in this study
[00:04:40.840]were collected and provided by the US Geological Survey. Further,
[00:04:45.370]this work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
[00:04:50.060]Special thanks to Shianne Lindsey for her support and assistance.

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Unforb-gettable, though near or farm: Bee flower preference in the northern Great Plains

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