Speaker
Description
Urbanisation is one of the main drivers of land-use change with overall negative effects on biodiversity. Yet, insect pollinator communities have been shown to have contrasting responses to urbanisation with varying effects on their species richness and abundance. Here, we used a multiple spatial scale (local to landscape scale) within-city approach to investigate the overall impact of urban development on insect pollinators, as well as identify the main urban environmental factors that influence pollinator communities in cities. For this, we used pan traps in the cities of Hamburg, Leipzig, and Halle at 350 sites that spanned from the edge to the city centre and collected several local (i.e., nesting and floral-food resource availability) and landscape scale (i.e., temperature, green cover, habitat fragmentation, impervious surfaces) ecological variables that could affect insect communities. Overall, we collected more than 10,000 insect individuals and identified more than 21 hoverflies, 33 Coleoptera, and 160 Hymenoptera species. Our analyses revealed that different insect pollinator groups had varying responses to different environmental factors in terms of richness and abundance. Our results provide insights into how environmental factors can influence and shape insect pollinators and highlight key processes necessary to inform strategies to restore and maintain diverse urban insect communities.
| Status Group | Master Student |
|---|
