Abstract
The yearlong association of two native honey bee species (Apis dorsata and A. florea) with 49 plant species was recorded in a planted forest and adjacent agricultural landscape at Multan, Pakistan. The study resulted in 588 interactions of A. dorsata with 40 plant species and 454 interactions of A. florea on 38 plant species. The most visited plants species by A. dorsata included Helianthus annuus, Citrus reticulata, Trifolium alexandrinum, Moringa oleifera and Calotropis procera, while the most visited plant species by A. florea included C. procera, Mangifera indica, T. alexandrinum, Coriandrum sativum and H. annuus. The peak abundance of bees and floral resources (i.e. number of plant species in flowering and abundance of floral units) was recorded during early March to late May followed by a gradual decline until December. Monthly abundance of both bee species was positively related to the floral resources, negatively related to relative humidity while it was not significantly related to temperature. The current study may serve as a baseline to track the degradation in ecosystem service of cross pollination and making new conservation strategies at local scale while future research should focus on tempo-spatial variations in foraging preferences, floral constancy and effect of foraging competition on crop pollination in different ecological regions of Pakistan.
Highlights
Honey bees play a vital role in crop production and in preserving the wild habitats
Some seasonal crops and fruit trees are grown in adjacent agricultural landscape including Helianthus annuus, Trifolium alexandrinum, Coriandrum sativum, Momordica charantia, Brassica campestris, Daucus carota, Allium cepa, Citrus reticulata, Grewia sub inaequalis and mangifera indica
A total of 72 flowering plant species in 30 families were observed for recording the visitation of A. dorsata and A. florea
Summary
Honey bees play a vital role in crop production and in preserving the wild habitats. They have coevolved with native flora and sometimes this coevolution results in specialized relationships. Because of their diverse nesting strategies and specific host plant biochemical relationships, honey bees are regarded as the most suitable social insect for the monitoring of environmental processes (Nathan et al, 1999). There are three native honey bee species in Pakistan i.e. the wild bee or rock bee, Apis dorsata (Fabricius, 1793); the little bee or dwarf bee A. florea (Fabricius, 1787) and domesticated bee, A. cerana (Fabricius, 1793) whereas, the exotic Italian bee, Apis mellifera (Linnaeus, 1758) has been successfully domesticated since 1977. Asia is not rich in bee diversity compared with some other biogeographical regions e.g. Neotropics (Michener, 1979) social bees (Apis sp.) – in terms of their abundance – play a critical role in maintaining the vital ecological process of cross pollination (Momose et al, 1998; Roubik et al, 2005; Devy & Davidar, 2006)
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