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Research article2025Peer reviewed

Land Use Change Consistently Reduces α- But Not β- and γ-Diversity of Bees

Tsang, Toby P. N.; Amado De Santis, A. A.; Armas-Quinonez, Gabriela; Ascher, John S.; Samanta Avila-Gomez, Eva; Baldi, Andras; Ballare, Kimberly M.; Balzan, Mario V.; Banaszak-Cibicka, Weronika; Baensch, Svenja; Basset, Yves; Bates, Adam J.; Baumann, Jessica M.; Beal-Neves, Mariana; Bennett, Ashley; Bezerra, Antonio Diego M.; Blochtein, Betina; Bommarco, Riccardo; Brosi, Berry; Burkle, Laura A.;
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Abstract

Land use change threatens global biodiversity and compromises ecosystem functions, including pollination and food production. Reduced taxonomic alpha-diversity is often reported under land use change, yet the impacts could be different at larger spatial scales (i.e., gamma-diversity), either due to reduced beta-diversity amplifying diversity loss or increased beta-diversity dampening diversity loss. Additionally, studies often focus on taxonomic diversity, while other important biodiversity components, including phylogenetic diversity, can exhibit differential responses. Here, we evaluated how agricultural and urban land use alters the taxonomic and phylogenetic alpha-, beta-, and gamma-diversity of an important pollinator taxon-bees. Using a multicontinental dataset of 3117 bee assemblages from 157 studies, we found that taxonomic alpha-diversity was reduced by 16%-18% in both agricultural and urban habitats relative to natural habitats. Phylogenetic alpha-diversity was decreased by 11%-12% in agricultural and urban habitats. Compared with natural habitats, taxonomic and phylogenetic beta-diversity increased by 11% and 6% in urban habitats, respectively, but exhibited no systematic change in agricultural habitats. We detected a 22% decline in taxonomic gamma-diversity and a 17% decline in phylogenetic gamma-diversity in agricultural habitats, but gamma-diversity of urban habitats was not significantly different from natural habitats. These findings highlight the threat of agricultural expansions to large-scale bee diversity due to systematic gamma-diversity decline. In addition, while both urbanization and agriculture lead to consistent declines in alpha-diversity, their impacts on beta- or gamma-diversity vary, highlighting the need to study the effects of land use change at multiple scales.

Keywords

agriculture; bees; biodiversity decline; land uses; pollinators; urban

Published in

Global Change Biology
2025, volume: 31, number: 1, article number: e70006
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Environmental Sciences and Nature Conservation

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70006

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/140592