Patterns and drivers of bee diversity and community composition in an inland Pacific Northwest forest system

Federal, state, and tribal agencies, as well as nonprofit organizations, are increasing their efforts to understand how forests can be managed to enhance native pollinators and the ecosystem services they provide. Managing this important group must be balanced with other services that forests provide including recreation, timber production, and livestock grazing. Investigating how native pollinator communities and the resources they rely on are influenced by biotic and abiotic variables in forests is necessary for understanding their responses to management activities, including riparian restoration, native ungulate and livestock grazing management, and silviculture. Research focused on native bees at the USDA Forest Service Starkey Experimental Forest and Range in eastern Oregon over the last decade has shown that forests, especially riparian areas, are home to abundant and diverse native bee communities (including species of concern such as the western bumble bee, Bombus occidentalis), that ungulate grazing influences native bees and the floral resources they use, and that restoration practices such as planting shrubs in forested riparian areas can potentially benefit bees. Biotic and abiotic factors such as bloom abundance and diversity, litter cover, vegetation structure, plant phenology, and weather interact to influence bee communities and their responses to management activities in these forests.