Long-term monitoring of wild bees in the longleaf pine ecosystem

Wild bees provide crucial pollination services to many native plants present in forests, including the wide diversity of plants found in longleaf pine forests of the Southern Coastal Plain in the U.S. Unfortunately, there is evidence to suggest that some wild bee species are declining, and the longleaf pine ecosystem has also been greatly reduced from its historical range in North America. We established a long-term monitoring project called TABS (Trends in Arthropod Biodiversity Systems) at the Jones Center at Ichauway, an 11,000-ha property of longleaf pine forest in Southwest Georgia. The goal of this project is to assess the spatial and temporal long-term trends in insect populations and communities in four different ecological communities embedded in the longleaf pine ecosystem: flatwoods, uplands, fluvial terrace, and fallow agricultural fields. We established 60 plots across the property and used blue vane and colored pan traps to sample bees. Identifications of bees for the first two years of the project are ongoing, but we have documented over 12,000 individuals from 75 species so far including several specialists, rare parasitic species, and a high abundance of Bombus pensylvanicus, a species being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act. We hope to continue the project for at least ten years, as there have not been many long-term studies on insects in the longleaf pine ecosystem, and that our results will help inform conservation and management decisions for both wild bees and other ecologically important insects.