Ecological traits affect the sensitivity of bees to land-use pressures in European agricultural landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Bees are a functionally important and economically valuable group, but are threatened by land-use conversion and intensification. Such pressures are not expected to affect all species identically; rather, they are likely to be mediated by the species' ecological traits.Understanding which types of species are most vulnerable under which land uses is an important step towards effective conservation planning.We collated occurrence and abundance data for 257 bee species at 1584 European sites from surveys reported in 30 published papers (70 056 records) and combined them with species-level ecological trait data. We used mixed-effects models to assess the importance of land use (land-use class, agricultural use-intensity and a remotely-sensed measure of vegetation), traits and trait × land-use

SUBMITTER: De Palma A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4973690 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature