Predicting bee community responses to land-use changes: Effects of geographic and taxonomic biases

DE PALMA, A., S. ABRAHAMCZYK, M.A. AIZEN, ET AL

Scientific Reports

Nature Publishing Group

Año: 2016 vol. 6

2045-2322

Land-use change and intensification threaten bee populations worldwide, imperilling pollinationservices. Global models are needed to better characterise, project, and mitigate bees' responsesto these human impacts. The available data are, however, geographically and taxonomicallyunrepresentative; most data are from North America and Western Europe, overrepresentingbumblebees and raising concerns that model results may not be generalizable to other regions andtaxa. To assess whether the geographic and taxonomic biases of data could undermine effectiveness ofmodels for conservation policy, we have collated from the published literature a global dataset of beediversity at sites facing land-use change and intensification, and assess whether bee responses to thesepressures vary across 11 regions (Western, Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe; North, Centraland South America; Australia and New Zealand; South East Asia; Middle and Southern Africa) andbetween bumblebees and other bees. Our analyses highlight strong regionally-based responses of totalabundance, species richness and Simpson's diversity to land use, caused by variation in the sensitivityof species and potentially in the nature of threats. These results suggest that global extrapolationof models based on geographically and taxonomically restricted data may underestimate the trueuncertainty, increasing the risk of ecological surprises.