High functional diversity provides ecosystem stability and resilience against disturbances. However, land-use intensification reduces functional diversity, thus jeopardizing ecosystem health. As bees are important contributors to ecosystem functioning, losses in functional diversity across bee communities could alter plant-pollinator interactions and reduce pollination services. Previous research shows that restoring agricultural lands back to natural habitat promotes bee abundance and species richness, which in turn could increase functional diversity. However, the placement of these habitats can be incredibly important as the surrounding landscape can influence arrival and establishment of bees based on their life history traits. Our research objectives were to examine 1) how placement of prairie restorations within agriculturally dominated landscapes affects functional diversity of bees, and 2) whether functional diversity influences network structure within each prairie, as traits such as phenology and sociality could affect specialization and nestedness. Using 16 restored prairies in Western Minnesota along a gradient of agriculture in the surrounding landscape (11–86%), we sampled bees throughout the 2017 flowering season using hand nets. We then collected trait data for each bee species to calculate functional diversity. Further, we recorded the flowering species from which each bee was collected from to measure normalized degree and specificity across networks.
Results/Conclusions
Overall, we observed 6,974 interactions between 125 bee species and 112 plant species. We were able to collect trait data for all bee species on floral specialization, sociality, nesting behavior, body size, and phenology. Preliminary results show that agriculture did not affect functional diversity. Our next step will be to determine whether functional diversity and uniqueness affect the structure of plant-pollinator networks. Establishment of pollinator communities is important for the long-term maintenance and success of restored prairies. Our study provides insight into whether the placement of restored habitats needs to be taken into consideration when trying to promote functional diversity and ecosystem functions, such as pollination.