Land-Use History as a Predictor of Bee Diversity and Abundance

The American tallgrass prairie is disappearing at an alarming rate. Bees are essential pollinators in prairies, and the loss of prairies reduces available floral resources and ground nesting spots. We examine foraging bee diversity in remnant prairie, restored prairie, and old-field sites. I hypothesized that bee diversity should be highest in remnant prairies, reflecting higher levels of native flower diversity. I also hypothesized that bees should prefer blue pan traps, based on bees’ abundance of photoreceptors that detect blue light. Using nonmetric multidimensional scaling, we found that land use type was a significant predictor of bee species diversity and abundance