Journal Club Article for March 21, 2022

On Mon­day, March 21, 2022, from 12–1PM EDT, we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “The effects of for­est frag­men­ta­tion on bee com­mu­ni­ties in trop­i­cal coun­try­side”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research intern James O’Neil.

Abstract: We exam­ined bee com­mu­ni­ty respons­es to for­est frag­ment size, shape, iso­la­tion and land­scape con­text (for­est vari­ables) by sam­pling for­ag­ing bees at ground lev­el using aer­i­al net­ting with­in, and in pas­tures adja­cent to, 22 for­est frag­ments rang­ing in area from c. 0·25 ha to 230 ha, in south­ern Cos­ta Rica. We sam­pled each site 13 times in total, in both wet and dry sea­sons. Although there were no effects of for­est vari­ables on bee diver­si­ty and abun­dance, we did find strong changes in bee com­mu­ni­ty com­po­si­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, tree-nest­ing meliponines (social stin­g­less bees) were asso­ci­at­ed with larg­er frag­ments, small­er edge:area ratios and greater pro­por­tions of for­est sur­round­ing sam­ple points, while intro­duced Apis showed oppo­site pat­terns. Com­mu­ni­ty com­po­si­tion was also strik­ing­ly dif­fer­ent between forests and pas­tures, despite their spa­tial prox­im­i­ty. In forests, even in the small­est patch­es, meliponines com­prised a much larg­er pro­por­tion of the api­fau­na, and orchid bees (euglossines) were com­mon. In pas­tures, Apis was much more abun­dant and no euglos­sine bees were found. These results agree broad­ly with oth­er stud­ies that have found con­trast­ing respons­es to habi­tat frag­men­ta­tion from dif­fer­ent bee groups. Con­serv­ing melipo­nine bees, impor­tant for pol­li­na­tion of cof­fee and oth­er crops, and euglos­sine bees, crit­i­cal in long-dis­tance pollen trans­port, will require forest.

https://massasoit.zoom.us/my/stemresearch

Meet­ing ID: 549 554 5262

Mas­sas­oit STEM events are open to ALL Mas­sas­oit stu­dents, fac­ul­ty, and staff.

Mas­sas­oit Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege encour­ages per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties to par­tic­i­pate in its pro­grams and activ­i­ties. If you antic­i­pate need­ing any type of accom­mo­da­tion or have ques­tions relat­ed to access for this event, please con­tact the Divi­sion of Sci­ence and Math­e­mat­ics at sciencemath@massasoit.edu in advance of your par­tic­i­pa­tion or visit.

Pho­to by Eel­co Böhtlingk on Unsplash