Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 13;12(1):9783.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-10286-w.

Wild bees respond differently to sampling traps with vanes of different colors and light reflectivity in a livestock pasture ecosystem

Roshani S Acharya  1 , Joan M Burke  2 , Timothy Leslie  3 , Kelly Loftin  1 , Neelendra K Joshi  4
Affiliations

Wild bees respond differently to sampling traps with vanes of different colors and light reflectivity in a livestock pasture ecosystem

Roshani S Acharya et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Wild bees are important pollinators and monitoring their abundance and diversity is necessary to develop conservation protocols. It is imperative to understand differences in sampling efficiency among different trap types to help guide monitoring efforts. This study used a new vane trap design to collect bees in a livestock pasture ecosystem and examined the impact of six different vane colors on wild bee sampling. We recorded 2230 bees comprising 49 species and five families. The most abundant species were Augochlorella aurata (25.8%), Lasioglossum disparile (18.3%), Lasioglossum imitatum (10.85%), Agapostemon texanus (10.8%), Melissodes vernoniae (9.9%) and Halictus ligatus (4.7%). Traps with bright blue vanes captured the greatest number and diversity of bees as compared to traps with bright yellow, dark blue, dark yellow, and purple vanes. Red vanes had the lowest captures rates of individuals and species. Different colors were associated with different bee species arrays and only nine species were found in all vane color types. Vanes with higher light reflectance properties (within 400-600 nm range) attracted the greatest number of bees. These results show that different light wavelengths and reflectivity of vane traps influence bee capture rates, and such findings can help optimize bee sampling methods in different ecosystems.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Design of trap used for sampling of wild bees in livestock pasture system. Design and illustration by N. Joshi. Specific information related to trap parts and color is given in the methods section.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Differences in capture rate (least squares means ± SE) of bees in passive traps with six different colored vanes (bright blue, bright yellow, dark blue, dark yellow, purple, red) in livestock pasture system.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Rarefaction curves showing accumulation of the number of species in relation to the number of samples (A) and number of individuals (B). Different small letters after color type inside parenthesis indicates significant differences based on non-overlapping 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Ordination (redundancy analysis; RDA) biplot showing the association of bee genera and different colored vanes.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Light reflectance spectrum of different colored vanes of passive traps used for sampling bee communities in pasture system.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Light reflectance spectrum of the collection jar of the traps used for sampling bees.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Klein A-M, et al. Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops. Proc. Royal Soc. B Biol. Sci. 2007;274:303–313. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3721. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ollerton J, Winfree R, Tarrant S. How many flowering plants are pollinated by animals? Oikos. 2011;120:321–326. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2010.18644.x. - DOI
    1. Potts, S. G. et al. The assessment report on pollinators, pollination and food production: summary for policymakers. (Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Fourth Session, Kuala Lampur, 22–28 February, 2016).
    1. Cane JH, Minckley RL, Kervin LJ. Sampling bees (Hymenoptera: Apiformes) for pollinator community studies: pitfalls of pan-trapping. J. Kansas Entomol. Soc. 2000;73:225–231.
    1. Jousselin E, Kjellberg F. The functional implications of active and passive pollination in dioecious figs. Ecol. Lett. 2001;4:151–158. doi: 10.1046/j.1461-0248.2001.00209.x. - DOI

Publication types