Limitations on either being likely to lead to population declines 11, 12. There are core calorific and nutritional requirements supported by pollen (to provide principally protein) and nectar (to provide carbohydrates) foraged upon by bees 10. across a region the size of Great Britain).įor insect pollinators, in particular bees, the availability of foraging resources at landscape scales has a significant impact on population viability 6, 7, 8, 9.

However, it has proved challenging to assess foraging plant resource utilisation by honeybees at these large scales limiting our understanding of how this could impacts upon population level processes (e.g. This would also provide an evidence base for developing mitigation strategies that can help address resource deficits for this key group delivering pollination services to crops and wild plants 1, 4. In the case of land use change, understanding its impact on resource utilisation by honeybee could provide insights into the long-term viability of pollinator populations. Insect pollinators are currently undergoing population declines linked to a number of factors including land use, agricultural intensification (including agrochemical usage), invasive species, diseases and climate change 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These findings highlight the importance of supporting temporally timed resources as mitigation strategies to support wider pollinator population viability. Understanding impacts of land use on resource availability is fundamental to assessing long-term viability of pollinator populations. Using information collected from the beekeepers on the incidence of an economically damaging bee disease (Deformed Wing Virus) we found that the occurrence of this disease increased where bees foraged in agricultural land where there was a high use of foliar insecticides. We demonstrate how the structure and complexity of honeybee foraging relationships with plants is negatively affected by the area of arable crops surrounding hives. Within intensively farmed areas, honeybee diets were dominated by Brassica crops (including oilseed rape). The species richness of forage plants was negatively correlated with arable cropping area, although this was only found early in the year when the abundance of flowering plants was more limited. To do this we used DNA metabarcoding to identify the plants present in 527 honey samples collected in 2019 across Great Britain. We use a national citizen science monitoring scheme to quantify how agricultural intensification affects honeybee diet breadth (number of plant species).

Matrix absence management