Landscape and design influence bee and parasite communities in garden bee hotels

Wayman, Timo

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129964 Copy

Description

Title

Landscape and design influence bee and parasite communities in garden bee hotels

Author(s)

Wayman, Timo

Issue Date

2025-07-21

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Harmon-Threatt, Alexandra

Committee Member(s)

• Miller, James
• MacIvor, Scott

Department of Study

Entomology

Discipline

Entomology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• invasive
• Hymenoptera
• Anthophilia
• trap-nest
• cavity-nest box
• bee house
• community science
• citizen science

Abstract

Bee hotels are increasingly popular amongst gardeners to bring conservation into their backyards. Despite their common use, bee hotels were not designed for conservation, but instead as science tools to observe bee nesting and diversity, and then as tools to bring solitary bees to pollinate crops. There have been growing concerns that bee hotels may not be helping native bee populations, instead encouraging invasive bees and problematic parasites. Landscape factors and design traits have been shown to affect bee hotel colonization, but how these affect the conservation potential of bee hotels is still an open question. To investigate this, bee hotels were collected from volunteers across the state of Illinois. The bee communities were dominated by the introduced species Megachile rotundata, Osmia cornifrons, and Osmia taurus. The problematic Monodontomerus dominated the parasite communities. The importance of landscape and hotel traits varied between different species and groups, leading to no obvious recommendations for how to encourage native species while discouraging parasites and introduced bees. While citizens are well-intentioned in using bee hotels, our results suggest they are more harmful than beneficial to conservation efforts.

Graduation Semester

2025-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129964

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2025 Timo Wayman

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