Polliland - Bees in semi-natural grasslands

Study Extent

We surveyed wild bee communities in 32 seminatural grasslands in SE Norway (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204621002309#f0005), selected to represent gradients of latitude, elevation, landscape composition, and proximity to sandy sediments and to mature forests. Five grasslands were located in urban, three in agricultural, and 24 in predominantly forested landscapes, according to the 2012 Corine Land Cover classification scheme from the European Environment Agency (EEA). The seminatural grasslands in our survey consisted of localities registered as traditionally managed hay meadows in the Norwegian environment agency’s database (www.naturbase.no), typically due to their flora and the presence of certain indicator plants such as Arnica montana (Öster et al., 2008). Seminatural grasslands can host diverse bee communities but also display a considerable bee species turnover related to local and landscape characteristics (Murray et al., 2012) and thus constitute a suitable model system for making spatial predictions of bee diversity.

Sampling

A detailed sampling protocol is provided in Sydenham et al 2022a https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104267 and Sydenham et al 2022b https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2022.104354

Method steps

1. We used the pan-traps to sample bees four times from May to August at each location. During each sampling event, traps were installed and left active (filled with water and a drop of detergent) for 48 h. Sampling was only conducted when weather conditions allowed sampling bees from all 32 seminatural grasslands within a period of four days (See Appendix S1 for details). From each trap location, we tallied the species richness of solitary bees and bumble bees (Wild Bee SR), the species richness of just solitary bees (Solitary Bee SR), and calculated the Shannon diversity of wild bees (Wild Bee H) and of solitary bees (Solitary Bee H).

1. Halictidae
   rank: family
2. Arthropoda
   rank: phylum
3. Hymenoptera
   rank: order
4. Andrenidae
   rank: family
5. Megachilidae
   rank: family
6. Insecta
   rank: class
7. Apidae
   rank: family
8. Animalia
   rank: kingdom
9. Colletidae
   rank: family

Southeast Norway