AUTHOR=Cunningham-Minnick Michael J. , Roberts H. Patrick , Milam Joan , King David I. TITLE=Sampling the understory, midstory, and canopy is necessary to fully characterize native bee communities of temperate forests and their dynamic environmental relationships JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution VOLUME=12 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2024.1352266 DOI=10.3389/fevo.2024.1352266 ISSN=2296-701X ABSTRACT=Introduction

Native bee communities of temperate forests are conventionally sampled from the understory, yet there is growing evidence that bee assemblages in forest canopies are distinct from those in the understory. Therefore, conventional approaches to quantify forest bee–habitat relationships may not comprehensively characterize forest bee communities.

Methods

To examine this, we sampled bees 1–26 m from ground level at 5-m increments at 47 locations in forests located in western Massachusetts, USA. We evaluated bee abundance and species richness responses to a suite of environmental factors measured in the understory with linear and segmented regression comparing four bee sampling strategies: (1) understory sampling only, (2) understory and midstory, (3) understory and canopy, and (4) all strata combined.

Results

We found that not sampling higher strata underestimated bee abundance and species richness, and linear models had less ability to explain the data when bees of higher strata were included. Among strategies, responses analyzed linearly differed in magnitude due to overall differences in abundance and species richness, but segmented regressions showed relationships with understory characteristics that also differed in slope, which would alter interpretation.

Discussion

Collectively, our findings highlight the value of including vertically stratified sampling strategies throughout the flight season to fully characterize native bee and other pollinator communities of forests.