Non-native honey bees disproportionately dominate the most abundant floral resources in a biodiversity hotspot.

ABSTRACT: Most plant-pollinator mutualisms are generalized. As such, they are susceptible to perturbation by abundant, generalist, non-native pollinators such as the western honey bee ( Apis mellifera), which can reach high abundances and visit flowers of many plant species in their expansive introduced range. Despite the prevalence of non-native honey bees, their effects on pollination mutualisms in natural ecosystems remain incompletely understood. Here, we contrast community-level patterns of floral visitation by honey bees with that of the diverse native pollinator fauna of southern California, USA. We show that the number of honey bees visiting plant species increases much more rapidly with flower abundance than does that of non-honey bee insects, such that the percentage of all visitors repres

SUBMITTER: Hung KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6408903 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature