Abstract
Urbanisation is an expansive process and a majority of insects live in human-modified areas. At the same time, a decrease in pollinator species richness and abundance has recently been observed in Europe, which in turn may have serious ecological and economic consequences. This study investigates the abundance, species richness and functional traits of wild bees in urban city parks in comparison to natural areas. The aim of this research was to assess the potential conservation values of urban green areas for bees. The present study demonstrates that a large and diversified city park may be a favourable habitat for bees, comparable to the natural fauna both in terms of the number and abundance of bee species. However, the study also showed that there were differences in the occurrence of species with different functional traits in the city parks investigated and in the natural landscape.
Highlights
Most ecosystems on Earth are directly or indirectly affected by human pressure (Ellis et al 2010) and a majority of species functions in environments that are subject to strong human pressure
We found that the similarity in bee species assemblages between plots within three research areas was very differentiated with percent similarity values in the range of 10–73% for Citadel Park, 25–74% for Botanical Garden and 20–61% for Wielkopolska National Park
The present study has demonstrated, that a large and diversified city parks may be a favourable habitat for a diverse and numerous group of bees, comparable to the fauna in natural habitats both in terms of the number of species and their abundance
Summary
Most ecosystems on Earth are directly or indirectly affected by human pressure (Ellis et al 2010) and a majority of species functions in environments that are subject to strong human pressure. Strongly transformed areas, dominated by man, play an important role in preserving biodiversity and their significance will increase together with population growth (Hobbs et al 2009; Kowarik 2011). Bees are a special group of insects because they are completely dependent on flowers as a source of food. About 85.0% of flowering plants are biotically pollinated and the majority of angiosperm species are pollinated by insects, among which the bees are the most important pollinators in most geographic regions As a major crop pollinator bees play a significant role in food production (e.g. Delaplane and Mayer 2000; Klein et al 2007). Numerous works show that cities are important habitats for a significant number of bee species (Saure 1996; Matteson et al 2008; Carré et al 2009; Banaszak-Cibicka and Żmihorski 2012)
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