Linking bumblebee foraging to resources in Wisconsin landscapes using radio frequency identification (RFID) methods

Pollination by insects is a crucial ecosystem service that helps to provide over 70% of economically important crops worldwide. As the world population and food demands continue to increase, there is a premium for these services. Despite this, pollinating insects, especially bees, are declining due to increased agricultural intensification. These declines can be mitigated by developing conservation strategies aimed at protecting landscapes that support healthy and abundant bee communities. In order to develop conservation strategies, it is imperative that we determine which types of landscapes are most suitable to bees. This work reports on a novel method for testing landscape suitability to bees, particularly wild bees as their services become more and more important with declining honeybee populations. Using radio frequency identification (RFID), we tracked  sentinel colonies of common Eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) and determined their foraging dynamics (time, number of bouts) and colony reproductive performance across a range of landscape types including a mass flowering crop system (cranberry) and a complex series of agroecosystems in southern Wisconsin.  By relating foraging and colony performance to landscape characteristics (e.g., resource abundance and landscape structure), we were able to determine how B. impatiens responds to different landscape types and thereby which landscapes were the “best” for the performance of a colony.  These data represent an empirical method by which to assess different landscapes for their suitability to wild bees and will help guide conservation strategies for bees in Wisconsin.