DOI: 10.5061/dryad.z08kprrrc
title: Where and what kind – a better understanding of local and landscape features in planning the urban flower meadows for supporting bee communities

description: Cities are growing ecosystems in the modern world. Due to their
 heterogeneity, urban areas have multifaceted influences on organisms,
 including bees. However, in many specific city greenspace designs and
 management implementations, our understanding of their functionality
 remains limited. This is also true for urban flower meadows (UFMs). We
 extensively examined UFMs in three large cities to answer the following
 question: What features of UFMs and their surroundings (urban matrix) are
 the most important in supporting bees in cities? Our multifaceted approach
 revealed that the mosaics of habitats surrounding UFMs are at least as
 necessary to support bees as the local features of UFMs. An abundance of
 bees responded positively to the number of flowering units and to the blue
 and yellow colors of flowers, and increased cover of industrial areas,
 green urban areas, and pastures in a 100-m buffer. Increasing the cover of
 the continuous urban fabric in all buffer zones (100 m, 300 m, and 500 m)
 positively affected bee species richness and abundance. Due to lack of the
 design guidelines of urban flower meadows, our results are helpful for the
 further planning of UFMs to optimize bee-friendly areas in the urban
 landscapes.
description: # Where and what kind – a better understanding of local and landscape
 features in planning the urban flower meadows for supporting bee
 communities Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.z08kprrrc](10.5061/dryad.z08kprrrc) ## Description of the
 data and file structure The study was conducted in 2021 across all open
 green areas designated as urban flower meadows (n = 55) in three major
 Polish cities (each with &gt;290,000 inhabitants): Białystok (BI)
 (53°07′59″N, 23°09′51″E), Bydgoszcz (CB) (53°07′24.6″N, 18°00′27.43″E),
 and Łódź (EL) (51°45′00″N, 19°28′00″E), located in the northern, central,
 and eastern parts of Poland, respectively. The dataset “Data_landscape”
 includes raw data on: 1) landscape variables, specifically features of the
 urban matrix, which were characterized based on Urban Atlas 2018 maps
 (Copernicus, 2020), which describe 20 different types of urban land use
 (Table – variable E-X). The area was analyzed within three buffers (100,
 300, and 500 meters) around urban flower meadows. The dataset
 “Data_structure” includes data that are based on a previous analysis of
 vegetation structure conducted both in the field and in the laboratory.
 Urban flower meadows varied in size ranging from approximately 80 m² to
 5,000 m², and vegetation cover. The internal characteristics of the urban
 flower meadows were assessed within each area (variables B-I - v B-I) or
 they are based on an analysis of a fragment of the urban flower meadows
 (2x2m), representative of the entire area (variables J-W - v J-W). ###
 Files and variables #### File: Data\_landscape\_UFMs.xlsx
 **Description:** Landscape variables, specifically features of the urban
 matrix surrounding urban flower meadows. ##### Variables landscape
 variables, specifically features of the urban matrix, which were
 characterized based on Urban Atlas 2018 maps (Copernicus, 2020), which
 describe 20 different types of urban land use (Table – variable E-X). The
 abbreviation S.L. given in each land variable, is the "surface
 land" and it refers to the percentage of land cover by a particular
 type of urban land cover. #### File: Data\_structure\_UFMs.xlsx
 **Description:** Structural variables, area and vegetation structure of
 urban flower meadows. ##### Variables The internal characteristics of the
 urban flower meadows were assessed within each area (variables B-I) or
 they are based on an analysis of a fragment of the urban flower meadows
 (2x2m), representative of the entire area (variables J-W). Number of all
 plant species observed in a given time on the particular UFM, and
 distinguished in this pool of species: flowering/entomogamus plant species
 (vD) and anemogamus plant species (vE). The variables F-I described share
 of individual geographic-historical species groups in the pool of all
 observed species of plants: apophytes, archeophytes, diaphytes and
 neophytes. Variables J and K gives naumer of species and number of
 individuals of observed bee species. Variables L - T described the colors
 of UFMs: Nf – number of flower units; variables N-S – frequency of flower
 units in particular colours: Nfw - white, Nfy - yellow, Nfwy -
 white-yellow, Nfp - pink, Nfb - blue, Nfpu - purple, Nfr - red. Nc - the
 sum of all distinguishable colors on the UFM plot. The variabes U-W
 described the overall structur of the UFMs: grasses (%) - percentage of
 surface cover by grasses, other (%) - percentage of surface cover by other
 then grasses plant species, bare soil (%) - percentage of surface cover by
 exposed soil, devoid of plant species.