Pollination by native bees is critical to global crop production and local ecosystem health. Studies showing declines in bee abundance have generated interest in finding methods to support native bee communities. Some studies suggest that electrical transmission line right-of-ways (hereafter, power line cuts) may serve as sanctuaries for bees due to their periodic but infrequent clearing and abundant edge regions. We used native bee community monitoring data from six sites in an initial evaluation of the potential relationship between metrics of bee community structure (abundance and Shannon diversity) and proximity to a power line cut. We also tested for a relationship between percent impervious surface area and bee community structure among the same sites. We sampled bees biweekly via pan trap and sweep net in 2016 and 2017. Distance from the nearest power line cut to each collection site was measured using Google Maps. ArcGIS software was used to calculate percent impervious within a 300-meter buffer around each study site.
Results/Conclusions
We sampled a total of 4,119 bees distributed amongst 42 genera. The distance from power line cuts ranged from 0 to 949 m, and imperviousness ranged from 0.5 to 46.9%. There was a weak but positive correlation between power line cut proximity and bee abundance in regard to bee collection by pan traps, but no significant correlation between proximity to power line cut and bee abundance from sweep net collection method. There was also a weak positive relationship between power line cut proximity and bee community Shannon diversity. There was no relationship apparent between percent impervious land surface and bee abundance or diversity. Although interpretation of our initial results is limited, the weak positive relationships between measures of bee community structure and proximity of only six sites to power line cuts invites a more thorough study. In a more rigorous follow up to this study, we will include more sites encompassing broader range of imperviousness and distances from power line cuts.