The potential of electricity transmission corridors in forested areas as bumblebee habitat

Declines in pollinator abundance and diversity are not only a conservation issue, but also a threat to crop pollination. Maintained infrastructure corridors, such as those containing electricity transmission lines, are potentially important wild pollinator habitat. However, there is a lack of evidence comparing the abundance and diversity of wild pollinators in transmission corridors with other important pollinator habitats. We compared the diversity of a key pollinator group, bumblebees (Bombus spp.), between transmission corridors and the surrounding semi-natural and managed habitat types at 10 sites across Sweden's Uppland region. Our results show that transmission corridors have no impact on bumblebee diversity in the surrounding area. However, transmission corridors and other maintained habitats such as roadsides have a level of bumblebee abundance and diversity comparable to semi-natural grasslands and host species that are important for conservation and ecosystem service provisio...