Date of Award

6-15-2024

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.S. in Biological Sciences

Organizational Unit

College of Natural Science and Mathematics, Biological Sciences

First Advisor

Shannon M. Murphy

Second Advisor

Adrian L. Carper

Third Advisor

Julie A. Morris

Fourth Advisor

Anna Sher

Keywords

Bee, Floral, Nesting, Wasp, Wildfire

Abstract

While fire is a natural disturbance in many global ecosystems, anthropogenic changes are affecting fire frequency, severity, and seasonality. Disturbances like wildfire affect bee and wasp communities, but recent meta-analyses are conflicted about whether fire harms or benefits insect pollinators. We investigated the lasting effects of wildfire burn severity on wild bee communities and floral resource availability across different burn severities in two-mixed severity fires that burned >20 years ago. We found that high severity fire has positive effects on bee diversity that are associated with severity-mediated changes to the floral community. We also studied the effects of wildfire burn severity on cavity-nesting bee and wasp abundance and diversity, and nesting habitat across burn severities (high, low, unburned) in the same mixed-severity fires. We found that fire severity had no impact on cavity-nesters, but that high severity fire did increase the amount of coarse woody debris available for nesting.

Copyright Date

6-2024

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Alaina K. Smith

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

80 pgs

File Size

1.4 MB

Available for download on Thursday, August 13, 2026



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