The effect of habitat fragmentation on the bee visitor assemblages of three Australian tropical rainforest tree species

Tropical forest loss and fragmentation can change bee community dynamics, and potentially interrupt plant-pollinator relationships. While bee community responses to forest fragmentation have been investigated in a number of tropical regions, no studies have focused on this topic in Australia. In this study we examine taxonomic and functional diversity of bees visiting flowers of three tree species across small and large rainforest fragments in Australian tropical landscapes. We found lower taxonomic diversity of bees visiting flowers of trees in small rainforest fragments compared with large forest fragments, and show that bee species in small fragments were subsets of species in larger fragments. Bees visiting trees in small fragments also had higher mean body sizes than those in in larger fragments, suggesting that small-sized bees may be less likely to persist in small fragments. Lastly, we found reductions in the abundance of social stingless bees visiting flowers in small fragments...热带森林丧失与片段化会改变蜂类群落动态，并可能破坏植物-传粉者互作关系。尽管已有诸多热带区域开展了蜂类群落对森林片段化响应的相关研究，但目前尚无针对澳大利亚地区该主题的相关报道。本研究聚焦澳大利亚热带景观中的大小型雨林片段，调查造访三种树木花朵的蜂类的分类学与功能多样性。研究结果显示，相较于大型森林片段，小型雨林片段中树木花朵的访花蜂类分类学多样性更低，且小型片段中的蜂类物种为大型片段中物种的子集。小型片段中访花蜂类的平均体型也大于大型片段中的蜂类，这表明小型蜂类可能更难在小型雨林片段中存续。最后，本研究发现小型片段中造访花朵的社会性无刺蜂（stingless bees）种群丰度有所降低……