Carper Adrian L, Adler Lynn S, Warren Paige S, Irwin Rebecca E
Department of Biological Sciences, Dartmouth College, 78 College St., Hanover, NH 03755, USA.
Environ Entomol. 2014 Apr;43(2):253-62. doi: 10.1603/EN13078. Epub 2014 Feb 17.
Urbanization is a dominant form of land-use change driving species distributions, abundances, and diversity. Previous research has documented the negative impacts of urbanization on the abundance and diversity of many groups of organisms. However, some organisms, such as bees, may benefit from moderate levels of development, depending on how development alters the availability of foraging and nesting resources. To determine how one type of low-intensity human development, suburbanization, affects bee abundance and diversity and the mechanisms involved, we surveyed bees across suburban and natural forests in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. We sampled for bees using a combination of bee bowls and hand-netting from March through July of 2008 and 2009. We found higher bee abundance in suburban than natural forests, and although observed species richness was greater in suburban than natural forests, there were no significant differences in rarefied richness or evenness estimates in either year. In addition, the effects of suburbanization were similar across bee species of varying ecological and life-history characteristics. At the local scale, bee abundance and species richness were both positively related to the abundance and richness of flowering species within forests, while the proportion of surrounding developed open areas, such as yards and roadsides, was a strong positive predictor of both bee abundance and richness at the landscape scale. These results suggest that open habitats and the availability of floral resources in suburban sites can support abundant and diverse bee communities and underscore the potential for native bee conservation in urban habitats.
城市化是土地利用变化的主要形式，驱动着物种的分布、数量和多样性。先前的研究记录了城市化对许多生物群体的数量和多样性的负面影响。然而，一些生物，如蜜蜂，可能会从适度的发展中受益，这取决于发展如何改变觅食和筑巢资源的可利用性。为了确定一种低强度人类发展形式——郊区化，如何影响蜜蜂的数量和多样性以及其中涉及的机制，我们在北卡罗来纳州罗利 - 达勒姆地区的郊区和天然森林中对蜜蜂进行了调查。我们在2008年和2009年的3月至7月期间，使用蜜蜂碗和手网相结合的方法对蜜蜂进行采样。我们发现郊区的蜜蜂数量高于天然森林，并且虽然观察到的物种丰富度在郊区高于天然森林，但在这两年中，稀释后的丰富度或均匀度估计值均无显著差异。此外，郊区化对具有不同生态和生活史特征的蜜蜂物种的影响相似。在局部尺度上，蜜蜂的数量和物种丰富度均与森林中开花物种的数量和丰富度呈正相关，而周围已开发的开放区域（如院子和路边）的比例，在景观尺度上是蜜蜂数量和丰富度的有力正向预测因子。这些结果表明，郊区的开放栖息地和花卉资源的可利用性可以支持丰富多样的蜜蜂群落，并强调了城市栖息地中本地蜜蜂保护的潜力。
