Affiliation:
1. Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0116, USA
2. Agroecology and Environment, Agroscope, Reckenholzstrasse 191, CH-8046, Zürich, Switzerland
Abstract
The western honey bee (
Apis mellifera
) is the most frequent floral visitor of crops worldwide, but quantitative knowledge of its role as a pollinator outside of managed habitats is largely lacking. Here we use a global dataset of 80 published plant–pollinator interaction networks as well as pollinator effectiveness measures from 34 plant species to assess the importance of
A. mellifera
in natural habitats.
Apis mellifera
is the most frequent floral visitor in natural habitats worldwide, averaging 13% of floral visits across all networks (range 0–85%), with 5% of plant species recorded as being exclusively visited by
A. mellifera
. For 33% of the networks and 49% of plant species, however,
A. mellifera
visitation was never observed, illustrating that many flowering plant taxa and assemblages remain dependent on non-
A. mellifera
visitors for pollination.
Apis mellifera
visitation was higher in warmer, less variable climates and on mainland rather than island sites, but did not differ between its native and introduced ranges. With respect to single-visit pollination effectiveness,
A. mellifera
did not differ from the average non-
A. mellifera
floral visitor, though it was generally less effective than the most effective non-
A. mellifera
visitor. Our results argue for a deeper understanding of how
A. mellifera
, and potential future changes in its range and abundance, shape the ecology, evolution, and conservation of plants, pollinators, and their interactions in natural habitats.
Funder
University of California, San Diego
Sea and Sage Audubon Society
California Native Plant Society
The University of California Natural Reserve System
Division of Environmental Biology
Subject
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine
Cited by
386 articles.
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