Bee diversity decreases rapidly with time since harvest in intensively managed conifer forests

Abstract

AbstractDespite widespread concerns about the anthropogenic drivers of global pollinator declines, little information is available about the impacts of land management practices on wild bees outside of agricultural systems, including in forests managed intensively for wood production. We assessed changes in wild bee communities with time since harvest in 60 intensively managed Douglas‐fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) stands across a gradient in stand ages spanning a typical harvest rotation. We measured bee abundance, species richness, and alpha and beta diversity, as well as habitat characteristics (i.e., floral resources, nesting substrates, understory vegetation, and early seral forest in the surrounding landscape) during the spring and summer of 2018 and 2019. We found that bee abundance and species richness declined rapidly with stand age, decreasing by 61% and 48%, respectively, for every 5 years since timber harvest. Asymptotic estimates of Shannon and Simpson diversity were highest in stands 6–10 years post‐harvest and lowest after the forest canopy had closed, ~11 years post‐harvest. Bee communities in older stands were nested subsets of bee communities found in younger stands, indicating that changes were due to species loss rather than turnover as the stands aged. Bee abundance—but not species richness—was positively associated with floral resource density, and neither metric was associated with floral richness. The amount of early seral forest in the surrounding landscape seemed to enhance bee species richness in older, closed‐canopy stands, but otherwise had little effect. Changes in the relative abundance of bee species did not relate to bee functional characteristics such as sociality, diet breadth, or nesting substrate. Our study demonstrates that Douglas‐fir plantations develop diverse communities of wild bees shortly after harvest, but those communities erode rapidly over time as forest canopies close. Therefore, stand‐scale management activities that prolong the precanopy closure period and enhance floral resources during the initial stage of stand regeneration will provide the greatest opportunity to enhance bee diversity in landscapes dominated by intensively managed conifer forests.