Agrobiodiversity as a means of supporting pollinator diversity: a study of wild bee species in the kitchen gardens of St. Lawrence County, New York

Kitchen gardens exhibit high agrobiodiversity with respect to crop species and floral resources. We hypothesized that kitchen gardens foster greater pollinator diversity as compared to larger monocultural cropfields.  We sampled wild bee communities using pan traps in 22 polycultural kitchen gardens and 6 monocultural forage cropfields in rural upstate New York through one growing season. We recorded 26 genera and 64 species of wild bees.  ANOVA indicated that there was significantly greater bee species richness (p < 0.05) in kitchen gardens as compared to forage crop fields.  Though total wild bee abundance was consistent through the growing season, some genera fluctuated in numbers.  Bee abundance could be influenced by both floral diversity and floral resource density. Further, additional parameters such as availability of nesting sites may also determine wild bee diversity.  This study has implications for long term management of wild pollinators and crop diversity in the region.