University Honors

The conservation of pollinators, such as bees, is important because they provide criticalpollination services in urban, natural, and agricultural ecosystems. While pollinators and theirservices are better studied in agricultural systems, less is known about the pollinators and theirfloral visitation patterns in urban/suburban areas. This includes the knowledge of bee speciespresent on the University of California, Riverside campus, located in an urban setting. Urbanareas, including college campuses, have been known to provide floral resources to pollinatorswith the integration of urban greenspaces. In this study, we aimed to: (1) characterize pollinatorvisitation to landscaping plantings on the University of California, Riverside campus, and (2)describe their foraging behaviors. Six plots throughout the campus were selected, with mostmeasuring at least 1 ha and each at least 100 meters apart. In these plots, we observed andrecorded any pollinators visiting floral species. We used mark-recapture methods to assesswhether the bee species stayed loyal to a specific floral species or whether they visited a widevariety of plants. Overall, we detected a total of 12 pollinator species marked that had visited 36flowering plant species in our plots in the UC Riverside campus. Of these 12 pollinator species,three were recaptured, Bombus melanopygus, Melissodes spp., and Apis mellifera. Recaptureprobability varied by the plant species visited and the pollinator’s identity but was consistentacross plots. Overall, our findings suggest that floral resources provided in urban greenspaces atthe University of California, Riverside have the potential to support native pollinatorcommunities.