Dear Spiral user, We’re pleased to introduce Helix, https://helix.imperial.ac.uk/ Imperial’s new repository for research datasets. Please use Helix for all future dataset deposits. There is no change to Spiral - continue depositing as usual. For queries, contact the Research Data Management team at rdm-enquiries@imperial.ac.uk. Kind regards, the Spiral Team. The Spiral team
Lower bumblebee colony reproductive success in agricultural compared with urban environments
File(s)
OA Location
Author(s)
Samuelson, Ash
Gill, RJ
Brown, Mark
Leadbeater, Ellie
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Urbanization represents a rapidly growing driver of land-use change. While it is clear that urbanization impacts species abundance and diversity, direct effects of urban land use on animal reproductive success are rarely documented. Here, we show that urban land use is linked to long-term colony reproductive output in a key pollinator. We reared colonies from wild-caught bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) queens, placed them at sites characterized by varying degrees of urbanization from inner city to rural farmland and monitored the production of sexual offspring across the entire colony cycle. Our land-use cluster analysis identified three site categories, and this categorization was a strong predictor of colony performance. Crucially, colonies in the two clusters characterized by urban development produced more sexual offspring than those in the cluster dominated by agricultural land. These colonies also reached higher peak size, had more food stores, encountered fewer parasite invasions and survived for longer. Our results show a link between urbanization and bumblebee colony reproductive success, supporting the theory that urban areas provide a refuge for pollinator populations in an otherwise barren agricultural landscape.
Date Issued
2018-06-27
Date Acceptance
2018-05-25
Citation
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2018, 285 (1881)
URI
DOI
ISSN
1471-2954
Publisher
Royal Society, The
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume
285
Issue
1881
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Sponsor
The Royal Society
Grant Number
RG2014 R1
Subjects
06 Biological Sciences
11 Medical And Health Sciences
07 Agricultural And Veterinary Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
20180807
Date Publish Online
2018-06-27