Do small habitat patches really help bees, or does it all come down to the bigger landscape? This question was at the heart of a two-year study across 33 sites in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Researchers measured wild-bee abundance and diversity alongside local floral resources, soil quality, and detailed landscape metrics—from wetlands and forests to agriculture and pesticide load.

The results: seasonality changes everything. Early-season bee communities depended heavily on landscape-level resources such as flowering trees and wetlands, which provided mass pollen and nectar in spring. In contrast, mid to late-season bees responded more to local conditions, thriving where summer and fall flowers were added—even in managed farms and orchards. But there’s a catch: species richness plummeted in landscapes dominated by intensive agriculture (>55%), showing that diversity is harder to maintain in simplified environments.

For land managers, the message is clear: scale and timing matter. Supporting pollinators means planting flowering trees and restoring wetlands for spring bees, and ensuring local late-season blooms for summer–autumn species. Conservation cannot rely only on isolated habitat patches—it requires integrating biodiversity across landscapes and seasons to sustain pollinator communities and the ecosystem services they provide.

Citation:
Kammerer, M., Iverson, A.L., Li, K., Tooker, J.F., & Grozinger, C.M. (2024). Seasonal bee communities vary in their responses to resources at local and landscape scales: implication for land managers. Landscape Ecology, 39, 97