DOI: 10.5061/dryad.5385j
title: Data from: The effect of repeated, lethal sampling on wild bee abundance and diversity

description: 1. Bee pollinators provide a critical ecosystem service to wild and
 agricultural plants but are reported to be declining world-wide due to
 anthropogenic change. Long-term data on bee abundance and diversity are
 scarce, and the need for additional quantitative sampling using repeatable
 methods has been emphasized. Recently, monitoring programmes have begun
 using a standardized method that employs a combination of pan traps and
 sweep netting, resulting in lethal sampling of bees. This standardized
 method can remove a large number of bees from sites during each sampling
 day, raising concern that the sampling itself could have a negative effect
 on bee populations. 2. We conducted an experiment to assess whether lethal
 sampling for bees using pan traps and netting affected bee abundance and
 diversity when done every two weeks throughout a season and over multiple
 years. We compared bee abundance, richness, evenness and functional group
 composition between sites that had been sampled every two weeks from 2009
 to 2012 to similar sites not previously sampled. 3. We found that the
 standardized method for sampling bees, with specimens from 132
 morphospecies, did not affect bee communities in terms of abundance,
 rarefied richness, evenness, or functional group composition. Thus, our
 results indicate that the bee communities we sampled are robust to such
 sampling efforts, despite removing an average of 2862 bees per season. 4.
 We discuss several explanations for why sampling did not affect bee
 abundance or community structure, including a density-dependent response
 to reduced competition for resources. 5. These results suggest that bee
 monitoring programmes sampling once every two weeks with pan traps and
 netting will not affect bee community structure. We urge researchers
 monitoring bees to utilize standardized protocols so that results can be
 compared across space and time.
description: Abundance richness and
 evenness data VOUCHERED BEESdata of vouchered bees
 to test for differences between repeatedly sampled sites and single sample
 sites regarding abundance (as catch rate), rarefied richness, and evenness
 (as Evar).Abundance richness and
 evenness data ALL BEESdata of combined bees
 (vouchered + released) to test for differences between repeatedly sampled
 sites and single sample sites regarding abundance (as catch rate),
 rarefied richness, and evenness (as Evar).data for functional
 group analysesdata of vouchered bees
 to test for differences between repeatedly sampled sites and single sample
 sites regarding abundance functional group composition. The four
 functional groups tested were diet (lecty), sociality, body size (size),
 and nesting substrate (nesting). Note that sociality was tested twice,
 once with only Bombus considered social, and again with Bombus,
 Lasioglossum and Halictus as social.functional group
 analyses.zipReady for NMDS VOUCHERED
 BEES ONLYsample day by species
 matrix ready for NMDS analysis.Ready for nmds VOUCHERED BEES
 ONLY.csvYearly bee catch
 datadata used to calculate
 mean catch rates per sampling period per year by each sampling
 method.