Institute of Landscape Ecology of Slovak Academy of Sciences Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University Bratislava Czech Society for Landscape Ecology Mendel University in Brno (MENDELU) IALE Europe
Event place :
Bratislava, Slovakia
Event date :
05/09/2025
Audience :
International
Peer review/Selection committee :
Peer reviewed
References of the abstract :
Post-industrial landscapes such as the one found in Northern Europe Belgium are home to an impoverished community of pollinators, probably as a byproduct of ever increasing urbanisation and intensive agriculture. Yet, cities within this kind of environments have been found to host surprisingly diverse assemblages of bees around the globe. As a result, local policies may want to take advantage of this phenomenon as a lever for conservation, rather than extending their network of nature reserves. However, the apparent richness found in urban areas may actually hide ambiguous patterns of diversity, especially when it comes to the distribution of rare or endangered species.
Our aim was to determine the effect of urbanisation on wild bees richness and evenness using increasing orders of entropic diversity. Conservation significance was also assessed by quantifying IUCN threatened species. The relative significance of protected areas in the conservation of wild bees was examined by comparing their patterns of diversity to the one found in unprotected areas. Our results suggest that while urbanisation may not have a positive effect on raw species richness, urban areas harbor a more diverse set of dominant species, albeit with a conspicuous absence of threatened ones. Conversely, nature reserves may superficially look as diverse as other types of sites, but they do concentrate rare and declining species.
This research underscores the need for a nuanced approach to biodiversity conservation, emphasizing the unique contributions of nature reserves in safeguarding vulnerable bee species.
Research unit :
S850 - Ecologie des Interactions et Changements Globaux S869 - Zoologie
