Short-term responses of native bees to livestock and implications for managing ecosystem services in grasslands

By Chiho Kimoto, S. DeBano, R. Thorp, R. V. Taylor, H. Schmalz, T. DelCurto, T. N. Johnson, P. Kennedy, Sujaya Rao. 2012

85 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Rangelands are significant providers of ecosystem services in agroecosystems world-wide. Yet few studies have investigated how different intensities of livestock grazing impact one important provider of these ecosystem services—native bees. We conducted the first large-scale manipulative study on the effect of a gradient of livestock grazing intensities on native bees in 16 40-ha pastures in the Pacific Northwest Bunchgrass Prairie. Each pasture was exposed to one of four cattle stocking rates for two years and grazing intensity was quantified by measuring utilization. We measured soil and vegetation characteristics related to floral and nesting resources as well as several metrics of the bee community. Increased grazing intensity significantly reduced vegetation structure, soil stability, and herbaceous litter and significantly increased soil compaction and bare ground. Native bees responded with changes in abundance, richness, diversity, and community composition. Responses varied with taxa and time of season. Bumble bees were sensitive to grazing intensity early in the season, showing reduced abundance, diversity, and/or richness with increased intensity, potentially because of altered foraging behavior. In contrast, sweat bees appeared unaffected by grazing. These results show that native bee taxa vary in their sensitivity to livestock grazing practices and suggest that grazing may potentially be a useful tool for managing pollination services in mosaic agroecosystems that include rangelands.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b3132121c08c5072cdf23902eb8b060d8d0de022

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. T. Tscheulin
2. A. Lázaro
3. G. Nakas
4. Jelle Devalez
5. T. Petanidou

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

1. T. Tscheulin
2. A. Lázaro
3. G. Nakas
4. Jelle Devalez
5. T. Petanidou

In Plant Science

1. T. Tscheulin
2. A. Lázaro
3. G. Nakas
4. Jelle Devalez
5. T. Petanidou

Citations in the corpus

• Effects of grazing intensity on pollinator abundance and diversity, and on pollination services (2016, background): “…the abundance and diversity of pollinating insects, however, have mostly found linear relationships (e.g. Vulliamy et al., 2006; Xie et al., 2008; Kimoto et al., 2012; but see Kearns & Olivera, 2009) with contrasting effects (i.e. positive or negative) and strengths (i.e. steepness of the…”