Niche Overlap and Network Specialization of Flower-Visiting Bees in an Agricultural System

Different resource use strategies manifest as differences in the realized niches of species. Niche segregation may involve several dimensions of the niche, such as diet, space, and time. We measured the level of redundancy and complementarity of a bee–plant interaction network in an agricultural system. Because flower resource diversity is high and resource abundance associated with flowering phenology varies throughout the year, we hypothesized that trophic overlap in the community would be low (i.e., high niche complementarity). In contrast, we expected a combination of physiological constraints and exploitation competition to create high temporal overlap, leading to high redundancy in the time of use of floral resources. Dietary overlap was low (NOᵢₕ = 0.18): niches of 88% of species pairs had less than 30% overlap. In contrast, temporal overlap was intermediate (NOᵢₕ = 0.49): niches of 65% of species pairs had 30% to 60% overlap. Network analysis showed that bees separated their dietary niches and had intermediate complementary specialization (H₂′ = 0.46). In terms of their temporal niches (H₂′ = 0.12), bees were generalists, with high temporal redundancy. Temperature was not a key factor in the determination of niche overlap, suggesting that environmental factors do not likely have a primary role in determining high redundancy in the temporal use of floral resources. Rather, temporal overlap is likely associated with the timing of nectar production by flowers. Our results suggest that bees partition a wide variety of available floral resources, resulting in low dietary overlap and intermediate temporal overlap.