Anthropogenic disturbance of habitat is considered a contributing factor of pollinator declines, but some disturbances such as silviculture, may have positive implications for pollinator communities. Silviculture is a key source of disturbance in the eastern USA and thus, developing a better understanding of its ramifications for these keystone species is important for effective ecosystem conservation. We sampled bees in 30 forest openings created by group selection harvest as well as 30 sites in adjacent mature forest to examine the extent to which small forest openings support bees, to identify environmental variables influencing bee abundance and diversity, and to gauge their potential to augment bee populations in adjacent unmanaged forest. Bees were significantly more abundant and diverse in forest openings than in mature forest, but species composition did not differ. There was no relationship between opening size and abundance or diversity of bees in openings or adjacent mature forest. Both abundance

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Private yards comprise a significant component of urban lands, with managed lawns representing the dominant land cover. Lawns blanket > 163,000 km2 of the United States, and 50% of urban and suburban areas. When not treated with herbicides, lawns have the capacity to support a diversity of spontaneous (e.g., not planted) flowers, with the potential to provide nectar and pollen resources for pollinators such as native bees. In order to determine the extent to which suburban lawns support these important species, we surveyed lawns in 17 suburban yards in Springfield, MA, between May and September 2013 and 2014. Householders participating in the study did not apply chemical pesticides or herbicides to lawns for the duration of the study. We collected 5,331 individual bees, representing 111 species, and 29% of bee species reported for the state. The majority of species were native to North America (94.6%), nested in soil (73%), and solitary (48.6%). Species richness was lower for oligolectic (specialists on a single plant; 9.9%) and parasitic species (12.6%). Abundance percentages for number of individuals were similar. We documented 63 plant species in the lawns, the majority of which were not intentionally planted. The most abundant lawn flowers were dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and clover (Trifolium sp.). Nearly 30% of the spontaneous plant species growing in the lawns were native to North America. Our study suggests that the spontaneous lawn flowers could be viewed as supplemental floral resources and support pollinators, thereby enhancing the value of urban green spaces.

Forest management is often practiced to enhance conditions for wildlife, including native bees. Evaluations of the effects of forest management on bees have shown that abundance and diversity are higher in newly created earlysuccessional conditions. To date, studies have restricted sampling to the forest understory; however, recent research finds that bee abundance is as high or higher in forest canopies than in understories, suggesting that previous observations of substantially greater bee abundance and diversity in recently managed areas could be an artifact of incomplete sampling of the vertical gradient within forests. To examine the potential implications of sampling biases associated with the failure of previous studies to include canopy samples in comparisons of managed and unmanaged forests, we sampled bees within a recently harvested forest as well as the understory and canopy of adjacent unmanaged forest. Bee abundance and diversity were an order of magnitude higher in managed areas compared to the unmanaged forest, even when understory and canopy samples were combined. These results suggest that not sampling the canopy is inconsequential with respect to the broadly reported conclusion that managed areas support more abundant and diverse bee communities than surrounding forest cover.