Safeguarding pollinators requires specific habitat prescriptions and substantially more land area than current policy suggests

Abstract

Habitat loss and fragmentation are major drivers of global pollinator declines, yet even after recent unprecedented periods of anthropogenic land-use intensification the amount of habitat needed to support pollinators remains unknown. Here we use comprehensive datasets to determine the extent and amount of habitat needed. Safeguarding wild bee communities in a Canadian landscape requires 11.6-16.7% land-cover from a diverse range of habitats (~1.8-3.6x current policy guidelines), irrespective of whether conservation aims are enhancing species richness or abundance. Sensitive habitats, like tallgrass woodlands and wetlands, were important predictors of bee biodiversity. Conservation strategies that under-estimate the extent of habitat, spatial scale and specific habitat needs of functional guilds are unlikely to protect bee communities and the essential pollination services they provide to crops and wild plants. One sentence summarySafeguarding wild bee communities requires 11.6-16.7% of the area in common North American landscapes to provide targeted habitat prescriptions for different functional guilds over a variety of spatial scales.