DOI: 10.5061/dryad.fttdz091k
title: Data from: Indigenous versus exotic understorey plantings: Contrasting impacts on urban bee diversity

description: Urban environments pose a threat to biodiversity through processes such as
 habitat degradation and biotic homogenisation. Despite this, cities are
 increasingly recognised for their potential to conserve bees and other
 pollinators. Planting understorey vegetation is one way of providing more
 floral resources to support urban bee communities and the ecosystem
 services they provide. However, the influence of vegetation origin and
 landscape context on urban bee communities is unclear, particularly in the
 Southern Hemisphere. We sampled the bee communities at 32 understorey
 plantings dominated by exotic or indigenous (native to the local
 bioregion) vegetation around inner Melbourne, Australia. For each site, we
 recorded the amount of impervious surface and irrigated turf in 200 m
 buffers. Indigenous plantings were found to promote significantly greater
 alpha and beta diversity in bee communities compared to exotic plantings.
 Particular plant taxa were highly effective at attracting a variety of
 bees, with a maximum of 19 bee species (including specialists) hosted by
 indigenous Wahlenbergia capillaris (Campanulaceae). Apis mellifera was
 highly dominant and strongly associated with exotic plantings, whereas
 many indigenous bee species were positively associated with indigenous
 plantings. This study shows indigenous understorey plants have a positive
 influence on indigenous bee communities relative to exotic plantings which
 tend to attract only A. mellifera. Planting indigenous plants in cities is
 therefore recommended as a conservation action for local bee species.
description: # Data from: Indigenous versus exotic understorey plantings: Contrasting
 impacts on urban bee diversity Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.fttdz091k](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fttdz091k) ##
 Description of the data and file structure Supplementary data files for
 study “Indigenous versus exotic understorey plantings: contrasting impacts
 on urban bee diversity”, Burns et al. Contact Monique Burns
 ([moniqueburns20@gmail.com](mailto:moniqueburns20@gmail.com)) with any
 questions. **All files are in .csv format**. *
 bee_species_plant_host_abundance_final.csv: A matrix of bee (columns) and
 plant (rows) species observed interacting in this study. Numbers indicate
 the number of times a bee species was observed visiting the corresponding
 plant species. Used to develop a bee-plant interaction network. -
 site_species_richness_final.csv: A table showing the number of bee and
 plant species identified at each surveyed site (beespp and plantspp,
 respectively), the area of the site (m2), the proportion of impervious
 surface and irrigated turf in 200 m buffers around each site
 (prop_impturf), the site type (indigenous plants or exotic plants) and the
 time spent surveying each site (mins). Used to calculate alpha diversity
 of surveyed sites while accounting for other variables. *
 bee_species_site_abundance_site_type.csv: A table showing the number of
 observations made for each bee species (column 3-28) at each surveyed
 site, including the site type (indigenous plants or exotic plants). Used
 to calculate a Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrix that could be analysed to
 determine beta diversity of surveyed sites.