Research & reports

Sarah Taylor Lovell · · Global

This data describes the landscape attributes of nineteen sites as supplemental information for an article by Bennett, A.B., and Lovell, S.T., accepted for publication in PLOS ONE, which discusses how landscape and local site variables differentially influence pollinators and pollination services in urban agricultural sites.

Kratschmer S., Kriechbaum M., Pachinger B. · Urban Ecosystems, 21:429–446 · Austria (Vienna)

Monthly surveys on nine Vienna green roofs in 2014 recorded 992 wild bees of 90 species. Forage availability and fine substrates strongly boosted diversity and abundance; ground-nesting social bees and Sedum bloom-period foraging shaped a distinct rooftop bee community.

Trevor A Lambkin · Metamorphosis Australia magazine of the Butterfly & Other Invertebrates Club · Australia

This article discusses native bees, noting their weak jaws result in a tickle-like bite and that indigenous peoples globally have extracted their honey for various uses. Research into native bees for crop pollination began in 1984, leading to the development of hive propagation techniques by 1987. The keeping of native bees, particularly the subtropical Carbonaria species, has since gained popularity among various groups including schools and community gardens.

Brenda B. Lin, Monika Egerer, Alessandro Ossola · Frontiers in Built Environment · Global

This review examines how urban gardens might counter the ratcheting-down of everyday nature experience caused by urban green-space loss, by fostering biophilia. It outlines three pathways: exposure to diverse plants, animals and soils; understanding of natural processes tied to food production such as climate, pest control and pollination; and provision of a safe space for physical interaction with nature, and presents examples of urban gardens to illustrate biophilic design.

Hall D.M., Camilo G.R., Tonietto R.K., Ollerton J., Ahrné K., Arduser M., Ascher J.S., Baldock K.C.R., Fowler R., Frankie G., Goulson D., Gunnarsson B., Hanley M.E., Jackson J.I., Langellotto G., Lowenstein D., Minor E.S., Philpott S.M., Potts S.G., Sirohi M.H., Spevak E.M., Stone G.N., Threlfall C.G. · Conservation Biology, 31(1):24-29 · Global

A review by an international team arguing that, as pollinators decline globally under agricultural intensification and pesticide use, cities can serve as important refuges for insect pollinators including native bees. It highlights the conservation value of designing and managing urban green spaces such as gardens and community plots for pollinators, framing citizen urban agriculture as a contributor to biodiversity conservation.

Brenda B. Lin, Monika Egerer · · Global

Urban agriculture, the production of food and livestock in urban areas, is a key component of urban green infrastructure, supported for food security and biodiversity enhancement. While habitat management in urban agriculture aids local biodiversity and food production, the effect of native plants on beneficial insects and ecosystem function is debatable. Declines in urban bees are likely linked to increased impervious cover, which reduces habitat and restricts bee movement.

박진 · 한국양봉학회 학술대회 자료집 · Global

This report examines the global rise of urban beekeeping, noting its diverse approaches across countries like the UK, Japan, and Denmark. While South Korea has seen an increase in urban beekeeping since 2012, with government support initiated in 2016, the sector faces significant challenges. Urban beekeeping is still largely viewed as a derivative of conventional beekeeping, and a lack of ordinances or legal frameworks hinders its widespread adoption and recognition of its environmental, social, and economic value.

M. Bare, Raymond M. Danner · Ecological Restoration · Global

A 2017 study surveyed bird communities in three forest sites with different restoration and natural revegetation histories, 20–40 years since clearing, within a tropical urban-agricultural landscape in the Ecuadorian Amazon, comparing manually restored and naturally revegetating forest. A diverse assemblage of birds was found visiting and occupying the forest fragments, including two IUCN-listed near-threatened species. Bird species richness was similar across sites with different management histories and species composition varied only slightly, but differences existed in the presence and occupancy of forest-dependent groups such as large frugivores and forest insectivores. In the manually restored site, bird diversity may have been limited by under-developed forest structure, though the effects of patch size and landscape matrix could not be isolated. The study suggests future restoration efforts consider forest structure alongside plant species diversity, and that future studies account for landscape and matrix parameters when evaluating restoration projects.

J. Scott MacIvor, Laurence Packer · PLoS ONE · Global

This study modeled the occupancy probability of six solitary bee species using nest boxes set along an urbanization gradient over three consecutive years. Native M. pugnata showed decreased occupancy with increasing building footprint, and a similar but not significant pattern was found for native O. pumila. Conversely, introduced M. rotundata and M. centuncularis, along with native M. campanulae, exhibited increased occupancy with rising urbanization.

Monika Egerer, Peter Bichier, Stacy M. Philpott · Annals of the Entomological Society of America · Global

This study identified landscape and local habitat factors influencing lady beetle abundance and species richness in urban community gardens. Assessing 19 gardens over two years, it found that the amount of natural area surrounding gardens at 3 km was the strongest correlate of abundance and species richness. Gardens embedded in more urban landscapes had higher lady beetle abundance and richness, suggesting that urban landscape quality and local habitat management may interact to shape lady beetle communities within gardens.

S.G. Potts, V.L. Imperatriz-Fonseca, H.T. Ngo · Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Bonn, Germany · Global

IPBES's first international science assessment on pollinators, pollination and food production (552 pages), approved at its 4th Plenary session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in February 2016. It covers animal pollination as a regulating ecosystem service underpinning food production, gene flow and ecosystem restoration, addressing the roles of native and exotic pollinators, status and trends in pollination networks, drivers of change, impacts on human well-being, and the effectiveness of policy responses. The Assessment was formally endorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity's COP13 and prompted national pollinator strategies in countries including France, the Netherlands, Brazil, South Africa and the Republic of Korea.

Misha Leong, Lauren C. Ponisio, Claire Kremen, Robbin W. Thorp, George Roderick · Global Change Biology · Global

This study investigated the impact of human-altered landscapes on the seasonal patterns of bee communities, using three years of data on the spatio-temporal distributions of 91 bee species in urban, agricultural, and natural landscapes. Seasonal patterns of abundance and species richness in human-altered landscapes varied significantly less compared to natural habitats, where floral resources are relatively scarce in the dry summer months. These findings demonstrate that anthropogenic environmental changes in urban and agricultural systems, mediated through changes in plant resources and water inputs, can alter the temporal dynamics of bee pollinators.

Braaker S., Ghazoul J., Obrist M.K., Moretti M. · Ecology, 95(4):1010-1021 · Switzerland (Zurich)

By sampling carabid beetles, spiders, weevils and bees on green roofs and ground-level green spaces in Zurich, this study compares community composition and tests the relative importance of local environment, microclimate and connectivity. Connectivity among roofs and to ground habitats emerged as a key driver of species composition, demonstrating that green roofs can act as stepping stones that support biodiversity in the surrounding urban ecosystem — a landmark case for connectivity-aware green-roof placement in city design.

Amanda E. Nelson, Andrew A. Forbes · PLoS ONE · Global

This study sampled two plant-herbivore-parasitoid systems across 250 sites in a 360 km2 urban/agricultural landscape to investigate the impact of human development on trophic interactions. It found that herbivorous insect densities were decoupled from host tree densities in urban landcover types at several spatial scales. Furthermore, a parasitoid species was absent from all urban/suburban landcover in one system, even where its herbivore host was common, indicating that human land use patterns limit specialist insect distributions due to dispersal constraints.

Yaril Matienzo Brito, Marlene M. Veitía Rubio, Giraldo Alayón García · Fitosanidad · Cuba

This study identified the species that most frequently visit flowers of different plant species in urban agricultural systems, using weekly simple random sampling in different production systems of Havana province during 2007-2009. Functional groups with higher species richness associated with the flowers were Coleoptera, Araneae, and Hymenoptera, in that order. Cycloneda sanguinea limbifer Casey and Apis mellifera L. were arthropods that visited a greater number of flowering plant species.

Karin Ahrné, Jan Bengtsson, Thomas Elmqvist · PLoS ONE · Sweden (Stockholm)

This study investigated bumble bees in allotment gardens along an urbanization gradient from inner Stockholm to rural areas. Findings showed that bumble bee diversity decreased with increasing urbanization, from approximately eight species in rural areas to five to six species in urban allotment gardens. Higher variability in the abundance of certain species in the most urban areas suggested a potentially weaker reliability of the pollination ecosystem service in areas strongly influenced by human activity.

Eric G. Strauss · Cities and the Environment · Global

This issue of CATE is dedicated to the theme of urban pollinators in relation to community gardens, addressing a gap in knowledge regarding pollinator ecology in urban landscapes. It notes that while pollinators' roles in agricultural systems are well-studied, their impact in community gardens is less understood. Six papers in this issue explore these questions, aiming to provide a foundation for understanding urban pollinators and guiding future research and management.

Stephan Barthel, Carl Folke, Johan Colding · · Sweden (Stockholm)

This thesis investigated how social-ecological features influence ecosystem service (ES) generation through case studies in Stockholm, Sweden. Findings indicated that urban ES flows are products of co-evolutionary processes, requiring governance to consider historical rights and diverse actor groups. Informally managed allotment gardens showed higher pollinator abundance compared to other urban green spaces, and social-ecological memory among gardeners was found to retain and transmit practices linked to ES generation. The study concluded that sustaining urban ES depends on management practices by people and local communities of ecosystem practice.

Henrik Ernstson, Stephan Barthel, Erik Andersson, Sara Borgström · · Sweden (Stockholm)

This thesis investigates social-ecological features shaping the generation of ecosystem services (ES) in the urban landscape of Stockholm, Sweden. Through interdisciplinary case studies, it showed that informally managed allotment gardens have a higher abundance of pollinators, and voluntary actor groups motivated by a sense-of-place support ES generation. Social-ecological memory among allotment gardeners retains and transmits practices linked to ES, suggesting that sustaining urban ES requires considering historical property rights, diverse actor groups, and local communities of ecosystem practice.