Data for: Wild bees and landcover: bee species’ body size does not predict the scale of effect, but bee phenology predicts association with landcover type

Habitat is a key aspect of any species’ niche and can affect populations
at multiple spatial scales. Basic ecology and effective conservation thus
require understanding which habitats matter and at which scales. Yet,
habitat studies are rarely scale-optimized and what determines the
scale(s) at which populations are affected by surrounding habitat (the
“scale of effect”) is poorly understood. In this study, we test the
“mobility hypothesis,” which predicts that species with larger foraging
ranges should have larger scales of effect. The mobility hypothesis is the
most popular explanation of what determines species’ scales of effect but
empirical support is mixed. We test the mobility hypothesis using wild bee
species and, in doing so, also assess landscape-scale habitat associations
of 84 bee species. We collected 30,376 specimens of 84 bee species from
165 sites in the northeastern USA and used linear models to determine
landcover associations and scales of effect for each species. To test the
mobility hypothesis, we asked whether scales of the effect varied with two
mobility-related traits - body size or sociality, which are the strongest
known predictors of bee foraging ranges. Controlling the false discovery
rate at 5%, we found 193 significant species-landcover associations across
60 (of 84) species. Scales of effect ranged from 100 to 8000 m (mode = 200
m; median = 1000 m) and – counter to the mobility hypothesis – were not
associated with body size or sociality. As a result, we argue that
ecologists should reconsider making assumptions about species’ scales of
effect and should instead explicitly measure scales of effect for their
particular study organism and system. Considering the landcover
associations themselves, we found these were broadly explained by
phenology, with spring-flying bees being associated with forests and
summer-flying bees being associated with more open, non-forested habitats.