Insect biomass is not a consistent proxy for biodiversity metrics in wild bees

Vereecken, Nicolas J.; Weekers, Timothy; Leclercq, Nicolas; Greef, Stéphane De; Hainaut, Hélène; Molenberg, Jean-Marc; Martin, Youri; Janssens, Xavier; Noël, Grégoire; Pauly, Alain; Roberts, Stuart P. M.; Marshall, Leon

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107132

Cited by 31 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…Total biomass represents the whole insect community (Shortall et al 2009) and can be used as an indicator of ecosystem processes (Yang and Gratton 2014) and ecosystem function (Barnes et al 2016). Despite its power as a bioindicator, especially for energy flow and impacts on higher trophic levels (Stepanian et al 2020;Shaftel et al 2021), biomass alone might not always be a reliable predictor of biodiversity (Vereecken et al 2021). DNA metabarcoding is used for taxonomic identification up to species level.…”

Section: The Project Dina-diversity Of Insects In Nature Protected Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas (DINA): an interdisciplinary German research project

et al. 2021

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Insect declines and biodiversity loss have attracted much attention in recent years, but lack of comprehensive data, conflicting interests among stakeholders and insufficient policy guidance hinder progress in preserving biodiversity. The project DINA (Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas) investigates insect communities in 21 nature reserves in Germany. All selected conservation sites border arable land, with agricultural practices assumed to influence insect populations. We taught citizen scientists how to manage Malaise traps for insect collection, and subsequently used a DNA metabarcoding approach for species identification. Vegetation surveys, plant metabarcoding as well as geospatial and ecotoxicological analyses will help to unravel contributing factors for the deterioration of insect communities. As a pioneering research project in this field, DINA includes a transdisciplinary dialogue involving relevant stakeholders such as local authorities, policymakers, and farmers, which aims at a shared understanding of conservation goals and action pathways. Stakeholder engagement combined with scientific results will support the development of sound policy recommendations to improve legal frameworks, landscape planning, land use, and conservation strategies. With this transdisciplinary approach, we aim to provide the background knowledge to implement policy strategies that will halt further decline of insects in German protected areas.

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Section: The Project Dina-diversity Of Insects In Nature Protected Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas (DINA): an interdisciplinary German research project

et al. 2021

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“…Our dataset encompasses abundance records of wild bees obtained between 10.vi.2015 and 31.x.2020 through opportunistic observations, as well as through standardized, targeted biological surveys using a combination of pan traps and insect netting (transect walks) (Westphal et al, 2008;Normandin et al, 2017;Leclercq et al, unpublished;Weekers et al, unpublished). The methodology on the use of pan traps for bee surveys is detailed in Vereecken et al (2021).…”

Section: Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For functional community structure approaches, we used the methodology described in Vereecken et al (2021): the taxonomic classification and functional traits of wild bee species in the Brussels-Capital Region used in this study are available in Table S1. The mixed matrix of qualitative and quantitative functional traits (between the columns "ITD" and "Diet.breadth") was converted into a Gower distance matrix with the gowdis function in the "FD" package (version 1.0-12) (Laliberté & Legendre 2010;Laliberté et al, 2015).…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To compare the phylogenetic structure of the Friche Josaphat community to that of the Brussels-Capital Region, we adopted the approach described in Vereecken et al (2021) by building a polytomous, ultrametric tree based on the Linnaean taxonomic hierarchy of wild bees, and we used the "ggtree" package (version 3.12) (Yu et al, 2017;Yu, 2020) to visualize the resulting phylogenetic tree with its associated location data.…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another category of IGS or "vacant land" that received increasing attention over the past decade are urban agriculture plots such as community gardens. Results from recent studies indicate that they too have the potential to harbour particularly high levels of species richness for wild bees and other components of wildlife in urban centres (Normandin et al, 2017;Turo et al, 2021;Vereecken et al, 2021).…”

Section: The Future Of Urban Wastelands and Other Informal Urban Green Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Five years of citizen science and standardized field surveys reveal a threatened urban Eden for wild bees in Brussels, Belgium

Vereecken

Weekers

Marshall

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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1. Urbanisation is often put forward as an important driver of biodiversity loss, including for pollinators such as wild bees. However, recent evidence shows that the mosaics of urban green spaces, and in particular certain categories of informal urban green spaces (IGS), can play an important role to help native wild bees thrive in cities. 2. Here, we describe the results of five years of citizen science and standardised field surveys of wild bees conducted at the Friche Josaphat, a 24-ha urban wasteland in the Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium). These field surveys were initiated following the planned restructuring and partial destruction of this site by the regional authorities. 3. We recorded a total of 2,507 specimens belonging to 127 species of wild bees, i.e. 60.5% of the 210 species recorded regionally, including nine that are threatened with extinction at national or European scales. The Friche Josaphat encompasses a significant share of the functional and phylogenetic diversity of wild bees known from the Brussels-Capital Region and is one of the most species-rich localities known to date for wild bees in Belgium. 4. Collectively, our results highlight the strong complementarity of citizen science and academic approaches in biodiversity surveys, and they reaffirm that wastelands are essential components of urban biodiversity. Our study stresses the need to provide biodiverse IGS with a formal status within the mosaic of urban green spaces, but also to acknowledge and safeguard their natural capital and the multiple ecosystem services they provide.

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Enhancing flowering plant functional richness improves wild bee diversity in vineyard inter‐rows in different floral kingdoms

Kratschmer

Pachinger

Gaigher

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Insect biomass is not a consistent proxy for biodiversity metrics in wild bees

Cited by 31 publications

References 88 publications

Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas (DINA): an interdisciplinary German research project

Diversity of Insects in Nature protected Areas (DINA): an interdisciplinary German research project

Five years of citizen science and standardized field surveys reveal a threatened urban Eden for wild bees in Brussels, Belgium

Enhancing flowering plant functional richness improves wild bee diversity in vineyard inter‐rows in different floral kingdoms

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