Structure of the bee-plant visitation network in the gradient of landscape complexity

Abstract

The bees (Anthophila) are considered one of the most beneficial insects due to their role in pollination. The great proportion of wild flowering plants and vast majority of flowering crops need insects for pollination, and the bees are one of the most efficient pollinators among insects. There are examples of a positive relationship between diversity of bee pollinator community and enhancement of pollination ecosystem service. Loss of natural habitats due to agriculture leads to landscape simplification and decrease in diversity of wild bees which is recognized as one of the major issues worldwide. Therefore, it is important to maintain high proportion and diversity of remaining natural habitats in simplified agricultural landscapes. It is of the great importance to evaluate the interaction of bees and plants in different landscape complexity gradients to estimate specialization and vulnerability of the community. During summer season of 2020 we have sampled wild bees on flowering plants in semi-natural habitats in three different types of landscapes based on their complexity defined as percentage of non-arable land cover (Simple, Semi-complex and Complex landscapes). We aim to construct bee-plant visitation network and analyze its complexity and structure in regard to landscape complexity. Preliminary analyses showed that there are no statistically significant differences in average number of wild bee species per plant species between different landscape types. However, more detailed inspection of several plant species common to all three landscape types indicated that there might be some differences in wild bee species composition on the level of individual plants.