The distribution of wild bee species along a Latitudinal gradient in northern Europe depends on their flower preferences

Aim
The functional diversity of bees contributes to the maintenance of plant biodiversity because different species of wild bees prefer and pollinate different plants. Many bees, in particular species with narrow flower preferences or specialized habitat requirements are threatened by landscape homogenization and climate change. Nonetheless, we still lack an understanding of large-scale impacts of anthropogenic stressors on the distribution of wild bee species with different flower preferences.
Location
Northern Europe: Norway, Denmark and Germany.
Methods                                                                         &..., We combined datasets from six different wild bee surveys conducted within northern Europe. The combined dataset consisted of a total of 269 sites sampled between 2017–2022, located in roadsides (Sydenham et al., 2024; Sydenham et al., 2023) and semi-natural grasslands (Sydenham et al., 2022a; Sydenham et al., 2022b; Sydenham et al., 2022c).
We used binomial GLMMs (R package ‘lme4’) with the occurrence of a species (presence/ absence) as response variable to test for interactions between flower preference niche score (DCA1) and the bioclimatic environmental gradients (PC1 and PC2) while controlling for landscape composition (PC1 and PC2)., , # The distribution of wild bee species along a Latitudinal gradient in northern Europe depends on their flower preferences

[Access this dataset on Dryad](10.5061/dryad.wdbrv1608)

The dataset contains wild bee survey data from four sources: Sydenham et al. 2022a (32 sites) Sydenham el al. 2022b-c (115 sites), Sydenham et al. 2023 (31 sites) and Sydenham et al. 2024 (72 sites). The raw data from the cited publications were transformed to occurrence data (presence/ absence) used in the analysis of the paper of Torvanger et al., 2025 “The Distribution of Wild Bee Species Along a Latitudinal Gradient in Northern Europe Depends on Their Flower Preferences” published in Diversity and Distributions.

Using generalized linear mixed effect models, we observe that bee flower preference for either tubular flowers (Fabaceae) or plants with shallow flowers (including Apiaceae and Brassicaceae) can be described by a continuous flower preference trait score. The likelihood of observing a bee along a ...,