DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Effects of suburbanization on multispecies plant-animal interactions

在过去的50年里，美国的城市地区迅速扩张，增加了郊区发展的程度。土地利用的这种变化被认为是本地蜜蜂传粉媒介减少的主要因素，引起了人们对郊区传粉服务完整性的担忧。然而，许多因素可能决定了郊区化如何影响蜜蜂和依赖它们授粉的植物。这项研究的目的是确定郊区化如何改变植物、蜜蜂传粉者和其他消耗花朵的昆虫之间的相互作用。之前的研究已经证明，郊区森林实际上比天然森林拥有更多的蜜蜂，但生长在郊区森林的植物也更有可能被花食草动物破坏，这可能会降低植物对蜜蜂传粉者的吸引力。这项研究将确定1)对花的损害如何影响本地植物的授粉，以及2)郊区森林和天然林之间这种关系的差异。这项研究是新颖的，因为很少有研究表明郊区化是如何通过改变有益蜜蜂和有害取花昆虫之间的相互作用间接影响授粉的。授粉具有重要的生态和经济意义。传粉媒介对大多数开花植物的繁殖至关重要，据估计，授粉对全球粮食生产的价值每年超过2000亿美元。此外，对本地传粉媒介数量下降及其传粉服务可持续性的日益关注，凸显了研究驱动植物-传粉媒介相互作用变化因素的必要性。这项研究的结果将为人类发展如何影响授粉提供生态学的见解，并可能为发展中地区和发达地区的授粉服务保护提供建议。此外，本研究通过与公共和私人土地所有者的互动，与郊区房主协会的合作以及与个人房主的沟通，促进了公众对授粉重要性的兴趣和认识。由于公众的兴趣和参与是传播科学研究的组成部分，因此将编制一份资料小册子，其中包括本研究和以往研究的结果，并分发给所有合作的土地所有人、房主和公共机构。

Urban areas within the United States have rapidly expanded over the past 50 years, increasing the extent of suburban development. Such change in land use has been proposed as a dominant factor in the decline of native bee pollinators, raising concern over the integrity of pollination services in suburban areas. However, many factors likely determine how suburbanization affects bees and the plants that depend on them for pollination. The goal of this study is to determine how suburbanization changes interactions between plants, their bee pollinators, and other insects that consume flowers. Previous research has documented that suburban forests actually harbor more bees than natural forests, but that plants growing in suburban forests are also more likely to have flowers damaged by floral herbivores, which could make plants less attractive to bee pollinators. This research will determine 1) how damage to flowers affects pollination of native plants, and 2) how this relationship varies between suburban and natural forests. This research is novel because few studies have addressed how suburbanization affects pollination indirectly through changes in interactions between beneficial bees and detrimental flower feeding insects. Pollination is of great ecological and economic importance ? pollinators are essential for the reproduction of most flowering plants, and the value of pollination for global food production is estimated to exceed $200 billion annually. In addition, growing concern over declines in native pollinators and the sustainability of their pollination services underscores the need for research on factors driving changes in plant-pollinator interactions. The results of this study will provide ecological insight into how human development affects pollination and could produce recommendations for the conservation of pollination services in developing and developed areas. In addition, this research fosters public interest in and awareness of the importance of pollination through interactions with public and private land owners, cooperation with suburban home owners associations, and communication with individual homeowners. As public interest and involvement are integral to the dissemination of scientific research, an informational pamphlet, including the findings from this and previous research, will be developed and distributed to all cooperating landowners, homeowners, and public agencies.