Process of disruption: invasive flowering shrub density shifts bee communities and mutualisms throughout the year

Land use changes are altering mutualisms between angiosperms and pollinators in human dominated landscapes, causing losses in biodiversity. Apoidea, or bees, are primary pollinators in decline due to the combined effect of habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and land management practices associated with intensive agriculture. Invasive plants also reduce bee diversity in agricultural landscapes through competition and shading effects with native vegetation in semi-natural remnants, but affects of invasive floral resources on bee community composition and function are unclear. Lonicera maackii (Amur honeysuckle) is an alien shrub found throughout the eastern United States that successfully invades secondary growth forest fragments adjacent to intensive agriculture and offers its own floral reward. To determine how L. maackii and its floral resources affect forest edge bee communities, we quantified bee community responses to L. maackii densities on edges of 12 temperate forest fragment surrounded by intensive agriculture, each between 10-20 hectares and collectively representing a gradient of L. maackii densities in southern Ohio and Indiana. We sampled the bee community, recorded flower availability, and analyzed bee body pollen composition along a 100 meter transect of each forest remnant from April (2015) to October (2015). Preliminary findings suggest honeybees (Apis mellifera) seek the rich nectar reward of L. maackii flowers, while many native bees, including Bombus spp. actively collect L. maackii pollen. The results of this study will identify and define potential roles of invasive plants and associated floral resources in the decline of bee pollinators within intensive agricultural landscapes.