Mapping large-area landscape suitability for honey bees to assess the influence of land-use change on sustainability of national pollination services

PLoS One. 2014 Jun 11;9(6):e99268. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0099268. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Pollination is a critical ecosystem service affected by various drivers of land-use change, such as policies and programs aimed at land resources, market values for crop commodities, local land-management decisions, and shifts in climate. The United States is the world's most active market for pollination services by honey bees, and the Northern Great Plains provide the majority of bee colonies used to meet the Nation's annual pollination needs. Legislation requiring increased production of biofuel crops, increasing commodity prices for crops of little nutritional value for bees in the Northern Great Plains, and reductions in government programs aimed at promoting land conservation are converging to alter the regional landscape in ways that challenge beekeepers to provide adequate numbers of hives for national pollination services. We developed a spatially explicit model that identifies sites with the potential to support large apiaries based on local-scale land-cover requirements for honey bees. We produced maps of potential apiary locations for North Dakota, a leading producer of honey, based on land-cover maps representing (1) an annual time series compiled from existing operational products and (2) a realistic scenario of land change. We found that existing land-cover products lack sufficient local accuracy to monitor actual changes in landscape suitability for honey bees, but our model proved informative for evaluating effects on suitability under scenarios of land change. The scenario we implemented was aligned with current drivers of land-use change in the Northern Great Plains and highlighted the importance of conservation lands in landscapes intensively and extensively managed for crops.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Bees / physiology*
  • Conservation of Natural Resources*
  • Ecosystem*
  • North Dakota
  • Pollination*
  • Satellite Imagery

Grants and funding

The United States Geological Survey; the United States Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency; and the United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conservation Effects Assessment Project—Wetlands jointly supported this project. Other than policy review by the United States Geological Survey and a general editorial review the authors solicited from a colleague at the United States Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.