The effect of surrounding bloom color on pan trap success in sampling Rocky Mountain bees

Abstract

On a global scale, bees are important pollinators but face declining populations. In order to monitor the health of bee populations and communities, accurate sampling methods are needed. One common sampling protocol utilizes a combination of pan-trapping and sweep netting. While pan- trapping has its benefits in removing observation bias, there is limited information on how surrounding flower color impacts the success of similarly colored pan traps. We analyzed a long- term data set from the Rocky Mountains (Colorado, USA) to gain a better understanding of the degree to which flower color biases pan trap success. Bees were sampled in 16 sites every two weeks over a nine-year period. Calculating the proportions of bees caught in certain colored pan traps as well as the proportions of certain colored flowers available allowed us to model the relationship between the two factors. We found that similarly colored surrounding bloom color had a small but statistically significant impact on pan trap success in sampling bees, with similar color reducing trap success. Considering this bias, we recommend recording flowering species abundance, richness, and evenness when bees are sampled so that the effects of flower color bias on pan trap success can be controlled statistically in future research.

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