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Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Urbanization modifies the composition of all biological communities, including insect pollinator communities, but what is filtered out? To answer this question, we compared the pollinators and their morphological and behavioral characteristics between Paris green spaces and nearby ru...

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Autores principales: Zaninotto, Vincent, Perrard, Adrien, Babiar, Olivier, Hansart, Amandine, Hignard, Cécile, Dajoz, Isabelle
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33673434
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12030199
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author Zaninotto, Vincent
Perrard, Adrien
Babiar, Olivier
Hansart, Amandine
Hignard, Cécile
Dajoz, Isabelle
author_facet Zaninotto, Vincent
Perrard, Adrien
Babiar, Olivier
Hansart, Amandine
Hignard, Cécile
Dajoz, Isabelle
author_sort Zaninotto, Vincent
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Urbanization modifies the composition of all biological communities, including insect pollinator communities, but what is filtered out? To answer this question, we compared the pollinators and their morphological and behavioral characteristics between Paris green spaces and nearby rural grasslands. We monitored the pollinators foraging on identical plant plots in these two environments for two years, and from spring to fall. Pollinators in the city were relatively less diverse than their rural counterparts. They comprised fewer bees belonging to solitary or ground-nesting species, but the bees had a larger body size overall. These data add to the body of evidence of a filtering of pollinator communities by the urban environment, partly because the abundance and distribution of nesting and feeding resources are modified. Since the diversity of pollinators is important for plant pollination, such effects must be considered in order to preserve the insect pollinator community and maintain the pollination function despite the increasing urbanization of our landscapes. ABSTRACT: Even though urban green spaces may host a relatively high diversity of wild bees, urban environments impact the pollinator taxonomic and functional diversity in a way that is still misunderstood. Here, we provide an assessment of the taxonomic and functional composition of pollinator assemblages and their response to urbanization in the Paris region (France). We performed a spring-to-fall survey of insect pollinators in green spaces embedded in a dense urban matrix and in rural grasslands, using a plant setup standardized across sites and throughout the seasons. We compared pollinator species composition and the occurrence of bee functional traits over the two habitats. There was no difference in species richness between habitats, though urban assemblages were dominated by very abundant generalist species and displayed a lower evenness. They also included fewer brood parasitic, solitary or ground-nesting bees. Overall, bees tended to be larger in the city than in the semi-natural grasslands, and this trait exhibited seasonal variations. The urban environment filters out some life history traits of insect pollinators and alters their seasonal patterns, likely as a result of the fragmentation and scarcity of feeding and nesting resources. This could have repercussions on pollination networks and the efficiency of the pollination function.
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spelling pubmed-79967592021-03-27 Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community Zaninotto, Vincent Perrard, Adrien Babiar, Olivier Hansart, Amandine Hignard, Cécile Dajoz, Isabelle Insects Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Urbanization modifies the composition of all biological communities, including insect pollinator communities, but what is filtered out? To answer this question, we compared the pollinators and their morphological and behavioral characteristics between Paris green spaces and nearby rural grasslands. We monitored the pollinators foraging on identical plant plots in these two environments for two years, and from spring to fall. Pollinators in the city were relatively less diverse than their rural counterparts. They comprised fewer bees belonging to solitary or ground-nesting species, but the bees had a larger body size overall. These data add to the body of evidence of a filtering of pollinator communities by the urban environment, partly because the abundance and distribution of nesting and feeding resources are modified. Since the diversity of pollinators is important for plant pollination, such effects must be considered in order to preserve the insect pollinator community and maintain the pollination function despite the increasing urbanization of our landscapes. ABSTRACT: Even though urban green spaces may host a relatively high diversity of wild bees, urban environments impact the pollinator taxonomic and functional diversity in a way that is still misunderstood. Here, we provide an assessment of the taxonomic and functional composition of pollinator assemblages and their response to urbanization in the Paris region (France). We performed a spring-to-fall survey of insect pollinators in green spaces embedded in a dense urban matrix and in rural grasslands, using a plant setup standardized across sites and throughout the seasons. We compared pollinator species composition and the occurrence of bee functional traits over the two habitats. There was no difference in species richness between habitats, though urban assemblages were dominated by very abundant generalist species and displayed a lower evenness. They also included fewer brood parasitic, solitary or ground-nesting bees. Overall, bees tended to be larger in the city than in the semi-natural grasslands, and this trait exhibited seasonal variations. The urban environment filters out some life history traits of insect pollinators and alters their seasonal patterns, likely as a result of the fragmentation and scarcity of feeding and nesting resources. This could have repercussions on pollination networks and the efficiency of the pollination function. MDPI 2021-02-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7996759/ /pubmed/33673434 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12030199 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ).
spellingShingle Article
Zaninotto, Vincent
Perrard, Adrien
Babiar, Olivier
Hansart, Amandine
Hignard, Cécile
Dajoz, Isabelle
Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community
title Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community
title_full Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community
title_fullStr Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community
title_full_unstemmed Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community
title_short Seasonal Variations of Pollinator Assemblages among Urban and Rural Habitats: A Comparative Approach Using a Standardized Plant Community
title_sort seasonal variations of pollinator assemblages among urban and rural habitats: a comparative approach using a standardized plant community
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996759/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33673434
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/insects12030199
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