TY - JOUR
T1 - Bumblebees moving up
T2 - shifts in elevation ranges in the Pyrenees over 115 years
AU - Marshall, Leon
AU - Perdijk, Floor
AU - Dendoncker, Nicolas
AU - Kunin, William
AU - Roberts, Stuart
AU - Biesmeijer, Jacobus C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Data accessibility. The datasets and scripts supporting this article are available for download at https://github.com/lmar116/Pyrenees Bumblebees. Authors’ contributions. J.C.B. and W.K. conceived of the idea and planned the experimental design. J.C.B. carried out the field sampling. J.C.B., F.P. and L.M. extracted and prepared the historical database. S.R. and J.C.B. identified the specimens. L.M., F.P., J.C.B. and N.D. planned the data analysis. L.M. and F.P. prepared the data and carried out the data analysis. L.M. took the lead in writing the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript. Competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests. Funding. This work was funded by the EU through projects ALARM (Assessing Large-scale environmental Risks for biodiversity with tested Methods, www.alarmproject.net, EU 6th Framework Program) and STEP (Status and Trends of European Pollinators, www.step-project.net, EU 7th Framework Program). This work was also supported in part by BELSPO funded BELBEES project (BR/132/ A1/BELBEES; Multidiciplinary assessment of BELgian wild BEE decline to adapt mitigation management policy). Acknowledgements. We thank Judith Slaa, Simon Bryant and Chris Bies-meijer for assistance during the fieldwork and Zjef Pereboom for library assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors.
PY - 2020/11/11
Y1 - 2020/11/11
N2 - In a warming climate, species are expected to shift their geographical ranges to higher elevations and latitudes, and if interacting species shift at different rates, networks may be disrupted. To quantify the effects of ongoing climate change, repeating historical biodiversity surveys is necessary. In this study, we compare the distribution of a plant-pollinator community between two surveys 115 years apart (1889 and 2005-06), reporting distribution patterns and changes observed for bumblebee species and bumblebee-visited plants in the Gavarnie-Gèdre commune in the Pyrenees, located in southwest Europe at the French-Spanish border. The region has warmed significantly over this period, alongside shifts in agricultural land use and forest. The composition of the bumblebee community shows relative stability, but we observed clear shifts to higher elevations for bumblebees (averaging 129 m) and plants (229 m) and provide preliminary evidence that some bumblebee species shift with the plants they visit. We also observe that some species have been able to occupy the same climate range in both periods by shifting elevation range. The results suggest the need for long-term monitoring to determine the role and impact of the different drivers of global change, especially in montane habitats where the impacts of climate changes are anticipated to be more extreme.
AB - In a warming climate, species are expected to shift their geographical ranges to higher elevations and latitudes, and if interacting species shift at different rates, networks may be disrupted. To quantify the effects of ongoing climate change, repeating historical biodiversity surveys is necessary. In this study, we compare the distribution of a plant-pollinator community between two surveys 115 years apart (1889 and 2005-06), reporting distribution patterns and changes observed for bumblebee species and bumblebee-visited plants in the Gavarnie-Gèdre commune in the Pyrenees, located in southwest Europe at the French-Spanish border. The region has warmed significantly over this period, alongside shifts in agricultural land use and forest. The composition of the bumblebee community shows relative stability, but we observed clear shifts to higher elevations for bumblebees (averaging 129 m) and plants (229 m) and provide preliminary evidence that some bumblebee species shift with the plants they visit. We also observe that some species have been able to occupy the same climate range in both periods by shifting elevation range. The results suggest the need for long-term monitoring to determine the role and impact of the different drivers of global change, especially in montane habitats where the impacts of climate changes are anticipated to be more extreme.
KW - altitude
KW - climate change
KW - conservation
KW - land use change
KW - plant-pollinator
KW - wild bees
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097782758&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2020.2201
DO - 10.1098/rspb.2020.2201
M3 - Article
C2 - 33171083
AN - SCOPUS:85097782758
SN - 0962-8452
VL - 287
JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
IS - 1938
M1 - 20202201
ER -