Landscapes are becoming increasingly urbanized, causing loss and fragmentation of natural habitats, with potentially negative effects on biodiversity. Insects are among the organisms with the largest diversity in urbanized environments. Here, we sampled predator (Ampulicidae, Sphecidae and Crabronidae) and parasitoid (Tachinidae) flower-visiting insects in 36 sites in the city of Rome (Italy). Although the diversity of herbivorous insects in urban areas mostly depends on the availability of flowering plants and nesting sites, predators and parasitoids generally require a larger number of resources during their life cycle, and are expected to be particularly influenced by urbanization. As flower-visitors can easily move between habitat patches, the effect of urbanization was tested at multiple spatial scales (local, landscape and sub-regional). We found that urbanization influenced predator and parasitoid flower-visitors at all three spatial scales. At the local scale, streets and buildings negatively influenced evenness of predators and species richness and abundance of parasitoids probably acting as dispersal barrier. At the landscape scale, higher percentage of urban decreased predator abundance, while increasing their evenness, suggesting an increase in generalist and highly mobile species. Area and compactness (i.e. Contiguity index) of urban green interactively influenced predator communities, whereas evenness of parasitoids increased with increasing Contiguity index. At the sub-regional scale, species richness and abundance of predators increased with increasing distance from the city center. Compared to previous studies testing the effect of urbanization, we found little variation in species richness, abundance and evenness along our urbanization gradient. The current insect fauna has been probably selected for its tolerance to habitat loss and fragmentation, being the result of the intensive anthropogenic alteration occurred in the area in the last centuries. Conservation strategies aimed at predator and parasitoid flying insects have to take in account variables at multiple spatial-scales, as well as the complementarity of resources across the landscape.
1. More than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase. Even if urbanisation is widely regarded as a major threat to global biodiversity, recent research highlighted the potential ecological importance of cities for pollinators. Key determinants of cities' ability to sustain pollinators are the presence of green areas and the connectivity between them.However, also temperature is expected to be of primary importance for pollinator activities.2. Here, we aimed at disentangling the effects of temperature, open habitat cover, and distance from the city centre on wild bee communities in the city of Rome (Italy). We selected 36 sites along two statistically independent gradients of temperature and open habitat cover, and we sampled wild bee communities using pan-traps for 4 months. Then, we measured functional traits of wild bee species, that is, body size, social behaviour, nesting strategy, and diet breadth.3. Temperature emerged as the main driver of wild bee communities, with communities richer in species and individuals at warmer temperatures. We found little species replacement between cold and warm sites. In addition, with increasing temperatures, bee communities were dominated by polylectic and small-bodied species.4. Here, we showed that in a highly urbanised environment, temperature shapes pollinator communities irrespective of other landscape metrics. Even if warming seemed beneficial for urban pollinator abundance and richness, it might strongly homogenise bee communities by selecting for those traits that make species more easily adaptable.
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