The potential of cleptoparasitic bees as indicator

Authors: Cory S Sheffield Alana Pindar Laurence Packer Peter G Kevan

Publish Date: 2013/02/21

Volume: 44, Issue: 5, Pages: 501-510

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Abstract

Many factors affect bee diversity and abundance and knowledge of these is crucial for maintaining healthy bee communities However there are few means to fully evaluate the status of bee communities most are based on monitoring species richness and abundance and do not consider the diverse life histories of bees We propose that functional diversity of bee communities offers a more consistent means of evaluation and suggest that cleptoparasitic bees in particular show much promise as indicator taxa Cleptoparasitic bees play a stabilising role within bee communities They represent the apex of bee communities and are the first guild to respond to disturbances are easily distinguished as such and are diverse enough to be representative of entire bee communities The diversity and abundance of cleptoparasites in relation to all bees is indicative of the status of the total bee community and monitoring them should form an integral part of assessing bee communitiesThe initial study was completed as part of the requirements of the doctoral thesis of CSS We thank the orchardists and land owners that kindly provided CSS access to properties throughout the study and staff at the Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre Agriculture AgriFood Canada for support The initial work was funded by several AgriFocus 2000 Technology Development Project grants and an AgriFutures grant to CSS Further development of ideas presented here was funded by the National Science and Engineering Research Council NSERC Canadian Pollination Initiative CANPOLIN to LP and PGK This is contribution number 68 of the Canadian Pollination Initiative

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