“Bees in a Changing World: How land surface phenology, bee community distributions, and pollinator-plant interactions are impacted by urbanization and agriculture.”
Introduction by George Roderick
Urbanization and agricultural intensification of landscapes are important drivers of global change which have direct impacts on ecological communities, leading to shifts in species distributions and interactions. These landscapes are novel for many reasons, but an often overlooked aspect is how the phenology of vegetation can vary between land use types. Because such differences can impact floral-dependent species, I explored how human-altered landscapes, with novel ornamental and crop plant communities, affect the local bee ecology. Not only do bees depend on flowers for nectar and pollen resources, but they are also a group with high economic and ecological importance.
I collected and observed bees for three field seasons in a peri-urban landscape on the outskirts of the San Francisco Bay Area, where urban, agricultural, and natural land use types interface. Complimenting field work with remote sensing analyses and lab work, I investigated land surface phenology, bee community distributions, and pollinator-plant interactions.