WCS 3-Sentence Science

Corridors for Bees

December 26, 2019

CREDIT: G. ZABALA

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Catalina Gutiérrez-Chacón on the higher species richness of bees in areas of the Colombian Andes adjacent to water.

1. Researchers assessed the habitat value for bees of four biological corridors in the Colombian Andes by comparing bee species richness, community composition, and functional diversity.
2. They found a higher species richness in riparian than in restored sections of corridors, which was comparable to that in forest and higher than in pasture.
3. The results show that riparian corridors are holding forest-associated species that could not survive in pastures, and given the higher redundancy, can significantly contribute to the maintenance of pollination services in fragmented landscapes.

Study and Journal: “Biological corridors as important habitat structures for maintaining bees in a tropical fragmented landscape” from Journal of Insect Conservation
WCS Co-Author(s): Catalina Gutiérrez-Chacón, WCS Colombia Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.