Ecology of Urban Bees: A Review of Current Knowledge and Directions for Future Study

By Jennifer L. Hernandez, G. Frankie, R. Thorp. 2009

261 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Urban bee ecology is an emerging field that holds promise for advancing knowledge of bee community dynamics and promoting bee conservation. Published studies of bee communities in urban and suburban habitats are fewer than those documenting bees in agricultural and wildland settings. As land lost to urbanization is predicted to increase in coming years the necessity of studying urban bee populations is growing. We reviewed 59 publications on urban bee ecology with the following goals, to assess current knowledge, to highlight areas in need of further research, and to suggest applications of study findings to bee conservation. Identified trends in urban areas included the following, negative correlation between bee species richness and urban development, increase in abundance of cavity-nesters in urban habitats, and scarcity of floral specialists. Future directions for studying urban bee ecology include incorporation of landscape-scale assessments, conducting manipulative experiments and actively designing urban bee habitats.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/12ee4315f6610759755e8c39d6899ad28fbdd9dc

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Citations in the corpus

Landscape impacts on pollinator communities in temperate systems: evidence and knowledge gaps (2017, unknown): “Spe-cialist bees are rare in cities (Hernandez, Frankie & Thorp 2009; Tonietto et al. 2011) whilst other studies have shown a positive eﬀect of urbanisation on bumblebees (Carre et al. 2009), cavity-nesting bees (Cane et al. 2006) and later-season small-bodied bees (Wray, Neame & Elle 2014).”
The city as a refuge for insect pollinators (2017, background): “Bees in these cities include both solitary and eusocial species, especially species that are cavity nesters and pollen generalists (Hernandez et al. 2009; Cariveau & Winfree 2015; Sirohi et al. 2015) and specialized species indicative of high-quality habitat (e.g., pollen specialists and their…”
Safeguarding pollinators and their values to human well-being (2016, unknown): “The same approach should benefit pollinators and crop pollination in urban areas, although both agricultural and urban landscapes providing larger patches of natural habitat will probably increase regional pollinator diversity 116,117 .”
Diversity and abundance of solitary and primitively eusocial bees in an urban centre: a case study from Northampton (England) (2015, background): “In a review, Hernandez et al. (2009) found only 59 research publications worldwide on urban bee ecology and concluded that we are only beginning to document urban bee communities and their dynamics.”
Protecting an ecosystem service: approaches to understanding and mitigating threats to wild insect pollinators (2016, background): “…urban areas might sustain pollinator populations and 1162 provide pollinator services has increased in recent years (Baldock et al., 2015; Bates et al., 1163 2011; Bonaszak & Zmihorski, 2012; Geslin et al., 2013; Hernandez et al., 2009; Ireneusz-1164 Hennig & Ghazoul, 2012; Sirohi et al., 2015).”