Conservation ecology of bees: populations, species and communities

Écologie de la conservation des abeilles : populations, espèces et communautés

Tomás E. Murray , Michael Kuhlmann , Simon G. Potts

Recent concerns regarding the decline of plant and pollinator species, and the impact on ecosystem functioning, has focused attention on the local and global threats to bee diversity. As evidence for bee declines is now accumulating from over broad taxonomic and geographic scales, we review the role of ecology in bee conservation at the levels of species, populations and communities. Bee populations and communities are typified by considerable spatiotemporal variation; whereby autecological traits, population size and growth rate, and plant-pollinator network architecture all play a role in their vulnerability to extinction. As contemporary insect conservation management is broadly based on species- and habitat-targeted approaches, ecological data will be central to integrating management strategies into a broader, landscape scale of dynamic, interconnected habitats capable of delivering bee conservation in the context of global environmental change.

Mots clés: conservation; biodiversity; population; community; plant-pollinator<br>---<br>Apoidea; biodiversité; protection; relation plante insecte; pollinisateur

Domaines: Zoologie des invertébrés; Biodiversité; Ecologie, Environnement; Science des productions animales

Tomás E. Murray, Michael Kuhlmann, Simon G. Potts. Conservation ecology of bees: populations, species and communities. Apidologie, 2009, 40 (3), ⟨10.1051/apido/2009015⟩. ⟨hal-00892032⟩