how do wild bee communities differ across alberta's agricultural regions?
Wild bees support the production of crops across the globe and are an important group of species in our native ecosystems. Despite the important economic and ecological roles that bees play, little is known about the composition, distribution, or habitat requirements of native bee communities. This project aims to provide a snapshot into the diversity and abundance of wild bees in Alberta's agricultural zone, with a focus on bee communities in canola fields and native rangelands. We surveyed bee communities in canola fields and rangelands in clusters across the agriculturally productive area of Alberta. Each site was visited twice over the growing season, and we caught bees using pan traps and by doing targeted netting. Ordination and regression techniques were used to describe patterns in the bee communities across regions, sub-regions and site types, and perMANOVA was used to test the strength of differences between these groups. The results indicate there are differences in the bee communities across all 3 of these groups, with shifts in community composition and species associations in different regions of the province, and for certain bees, between rangeland and canola sites. For many regions, differences between rangeland and canola were not detected, suggesting that at a very coarse scale, there are minimal differences between bee communities in relatively undisturbed rangeland sites and in active canola fields.
Disclaimer: This website was created as part a class project for RenR 690 at the University of Alberta. Any results discussed are preliminary and may be based on modified data sets. Please contact the author for more information.
Disclaimer: This website was created as part a class project for RenR 690 at the University of Alberta. Any results discussed are preliminary and may be based on modified data sets. Please contact the author for more information.