DOI: 10.5061/dryad.95x69p8zb
title: Bee community and trait-based responses to fire in a Mediterranean landscape

description: Fire is a major global disturbance affecting the evolution of organisms
 and shaping plant and animal diversity, especially in fire-prone regions
 like the Mediterranean. Yet its impacts on insect-pollinator communities
 remain poorly understood. We conducted a 3-year study on a Greek island,
 examining spatial and temporal impacts of fire on bee communities and
 species’ functional traits. We compared bee diversity and population sizes
 in burnt and unburnt sites, by including in our analysis fire severity
 metrics using dNBR (differenced Normalized Burn Ratio) derived from
 satellite imaging. We show that fire initially led to increased bee
 abundance despite having a strong negative impact on floral resources.
 Burnt and unburnt communities differed significantly in species
 composition revealing that specific bee taxa drove post-fire recovery. In
 post-fire year 1, the population spike in burnt sites was driven by an
 increased abundance of below-ground nesters, excavators, and trophic
 generalists (polylectic); in contrast, the populations of trophic
 specialists (oligolectic) were negatively affected. By year 3, most
 differences between burnt and unburnt sites had been alleviated.
 Multivariate models incorporating fire severity, plant diversity, and
 floral resources revealed that the heterogeneity of fire severity, even
 within small spatial scales, drove most of the variation in bee
 populations, followed by flower numbers. Our findings highlight the role
 of fire as an environmental filter, selecting species with specific traits
 and shaping distinct post-fire communities. Notably, within three years,
 burnt bee communities started converging with the unburnt sites,
 suggesting a relatively rapid recovery of functional composition.
description: # Bee community and trait-based responses to fire in a Mediterranean
 landscape **Metadata for the manuscript:** Title: Bee community and
 trait-based responses to fire in a Mediterranean landscape Authors:
 Georgios Nakas, Aphrodite Kantsa, Lazaros Neokosmidis, Jelle Devalez,
 Thomas Tscheulin, Nikos Koutsias, Mark C. Mescher, Consuelo Μ. De Moraes,
 & Theodora Petanidou Journal: Insect Conservation and Diversity
 **Information about the dataset:** We examined the effects of a wildfire
 on wild bee communities in a Mediterranean island system. Data were
 collected over three consecutive years at burnt and unburnt sites on Chios
 Island, North Aegean, Greece. We assessed changes in bee abundance,
 species richness, and functional traits, as well as their relationships
 with fire severity and floral resource availability across the post-fire
 landscape. Data contain two files: ###
 Nakas_et_al_Insect_Conservation_Diversity_Bee_Data.csv * Family = The
 family of the bee species that was collected. * Genus = The genus of the
 bee species that was collected. * Species = The bee species that was
 collected. * Site = Identifier of the study site. In total, we selected 13
 sites (9 burnt and 4 unburnt). (For details, see also Figure 1 and Table
 S1 of the published article.) * Fire regime = Identifier of the fire
 regime. B: Burnt, U: Unburnt. * Year = Identifier of the year of
 collection. 2013: Year 1, 2014: Year 2, 2015: Year 3. * Method =
 Identifier of the collection method (Pan traps and Hand netting). * Round
 = Identifier of the round of collection: Round 1: April, Round 2: May,
 Round 3: June. * Plant species = The host-plant species that bees were
 foraging on during hand-net sampling. * Sociality = Sociality of the
 species (solitary, eusocial). (For details, see Table S2 of the published
 article.) * Nest location = Nest location of the species (below ground,
 above ground, n/a). (For details, see Table S2 of the published article.)
 * Nest construction = Nest construction of the species (excavate, rent,
 construct, n/a). (For details, see Table S2 of the published article.) *
 Lecty = Lecty (oligolectic, polylectic, n/a). (For details, see Table S2
 of the published article.) ###
 Nakas_et_al_Insect_Conservation_Diversity_Flower_Cover_Data.csv * Plant
 species = The plant species that was collected or recorded. * Family = The
 family of the plant species that was collected or recorded. * reproductive
 units = Total number of functional reproductive units per plant species
 (i.e., flowers or inflorescences depending on the species) was counted in
 each square. * Site = Identifier of the study site. In total we selected
 13 sites (9 Burnt and 4 unburnt) (For details see also Figure 1 and Table
 S1 of the published article). * Fire regime = Identifier of the Fire
 regime. B: Burnt, U: Unburnt. * Year= Identifier of the Year of
 collection. 2013: Year 1, 2014: Year 2, 2015: Year3. * Round = Identifier
 of the Round of collection: Round 1: April, Round 2: May, Round 3: June. *
 Square = Identifier of the number of the square in each site. Within each
 site, 25 squares of 1 m2 were randomly selected and the total number of
 functional reproductive units per plant species (i.e., flowers or
 inflorescences depending on the species) was counted in each square.