A comparison of bee communities between primary and mature secondary forests in the longleaf pine ecosystem

Michael D Ulyshen,Scott Pokswinski,J Kevin Hiers

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-59878-4

Michael D Ulyshen, Scott Pokswinski + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59878-4

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Abstract

Much of the once-dominant longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) ecosystem has been lost from the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States and only a few scattered remnants of primary forest remain. Despite much interest in understanding and restoring this ecosystem, relatively few studies have attempted to characterize or assess the conservation status of the longleaf bee fauna. The objective of this study was to compare the diversity and composition of bee communities between primary and mature secondary (>100 years old) fire-maintained forests in Georgia and Florida. We used colored pan traps to sample bees at three primary and four secondary locations divided between two regions characterized by sandy (Eglin Air Force Base) or clayey (Red Hills) soils. There were no overall differences between primary and secondary forests in bee richness, diversity, evenness or abundance. Community composition differed among locations but we found no evidence that primary remnants provide critical habitat to sensitive bee species.

Highlights

Much of the once-dominant longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) ecosystem has been lost from the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States and only a few scattered remnants of primary forest remain
The value of forests to pollinators has received relatively little attention compared to other land use categories, it is clear that forest type, forest age, disturbance history, management practices and other factors can strongly influence the diversity of bees and other flower-visiting insects[3,4]
Light transmittance through the canopy is known to be an important factor for both bees and herbaceous plant availability and can either decrease or increase with forest age depending on the forest type

Summary

Introduction

Much of the once-dominant longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) ecosystem has been lost from the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States and only a few scattered remnants of primary forest remain. The purpose of the current study was to compare the diversity and composition of bee communities between primary and mature secondary longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests in the southeastern United States. Beginning about 7500–5000 ybp, the longleaf pine ecosystem once covered much of the southeastern U.S coastal plain, extending from Virginia to Texas, but is considered among the most endangered ecosystems in North America[13,14,15] It currently occupies about 2% of its historic range and only about 0.01% of primary forests remain, amounting to about 5100 ha in total[16,17,18]. Breland et al.[23] recently compared bee communities between secondary longleaf pine forests with and without a history of tillage agriculture but otherwise very little is known about how bees are affected by past disturbances

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