Keng-Lou James Hung

• PhD, Biological Sciences
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Oklahoma

The western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most frequent floral visitor of crops worldwide, but quantitative knowledge of its role as a pollinator outside of managed habitats is largely lacking. Here we use a global dataset of 80 published plant-pollinator interaction networks as well as pollinator effectiveness measures from 34 plant species to...

Most plant–pollinator mutualisms are generalized. As such, they are susceptible to perturbation by abundant, generalist, non-native pollinators such as the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), which can reach high abundances and visit flowers of many plant species in their expansive introduced range. Despite the prevalence of non-native honey bees,...

Predicting the long‐term consequences of habitat alteration for the preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem function requires an understanding of how ecological filters drive taxonomic and functional biodiversity loss. Here, we test a set of predictions concerning the role of ecological filters in restructuring native bee assemblages inhabiting...

Assessing the relative contributions of different pollinator taxa to pollination services is a central task in both basic eco‐evolutionary research and applied conservation and agriculture. To that end, many studies have quantified single‐visit pollen deposition and visitation frequency, which together determine a pollinator species' rate of conspe...

One threat pollinators face in a rapidly changing climate is the decoupling of their activity period from the blooming period of their host plants. Pollinators active in the earliest part of spring may be especially susceptible, as there are few alternative food resources available if they become active before their host plants begin blooming. Thus...

To minimize the risk to bees and other beneficial insects, plant protection chemicals are typically applied to pollinator-dependent crop plants when flowers are absent or unopened. However, this approach does not entirely remove the risk of pollinator exposure. Much research has focused on negative effects of systemic insecticides (e.g., seed treat...

Green roofs provide foraging and nesting resources for pollinators that would otherwise be absent. However, green roofs are isolated from ground level, limiting habitat to only species that can reach them. In Eastern North America, green roof design often prioritises water conservation and plant survival, and so species in the genera Sedum and Phed...

Land use change threatens global biodiversity and compromises ecosystem functions, including pollination and food production. Reduced taxonomic α‐diversity is often reported under land use change, yet the impacts could be different at larger spatial scales (i.e., γ‐diversity), either due to reduced β‐diversity amplifying diversity loss or increased...

With about 1700 described species, the mining bee genus Andrena is a rapidly diversifying lineage and one of the most species‐rich groups of bees. Recent phylogenomic advances have greatly improved our understanding of the phylogeny of the genus, yet many species still await description, subgeneric assignments that are in line with their evolutiona...

To minimize the risk to bees and other beneficial insects, plant protection chemicals are typically applied to pollinator-dependent crop plants when flowers are absent or unopened. However, this approach does not entirely remove the risk of pollinator exposure. Much research has focused on negative effects of systemic insecticides (e.g., seed treat...

Controlling crop pests while conserving pollinators is challenging, particularly when prophylactically applying broad-spectrum, systemic insecticides such as neonicotinoids. Systemic insecticides are often used in conventional agriculture in commercial settings, but the conditions that optimally balance pest management and pollination are poorly un...

The discourse around the complexity and memorability of scientific names versus the simplicity and accessibility of vernacular names is a long- standing one, frequently raised by naturalists, science communicators,and conservationists. Some of these professionals have advocated for the adoption of an alternative, unregulated naming system that heav...

The ever-increasing development of citizen science in the 21st cen- tury, fostered by emerging technologies and ‘the internet of people’ (Bonney et al., 2014; Finger et al., 2023; Newman et al., 2011, 2017), demonstrates that the participatory involvement of non-professional volunteer citizens with an interest in natural history is often crucial fo...

We report on the rediscovery of Megachile parksi, a leafcutter bee ranked "possibly extinct" (GH) by NatureServe, at Little Sahara State Park in Oklahoma in June, 2022. We collate available records of this seldom collected species and discuss its putative natural history, as well as the conservation of subgenus Megachiloides more generally.

Species occurrence data are foundational for research, conservation, and science communication, but the limited availability and accessibility of reliable data represents a major obstacle, particularly for insects, which face mounting pressures. We present BeeBDC, a new R package, and a global bee occurrence dataset to address this issue. We combin...

NOTE: This manuscript and the package behind it are still undergoing tests and development. Once these are complete and a final version is accepted we will update the input data, package versions, and rerun all queries (values will change). Please contact James for further queries of collaborations in the meantime. Abstract: Species occurrence da...

Pollinator nutrition is a highly complex subject that we are just starting to unravel, from the multidimensional nature of bee forage (pollen and nectar) to how the abiotic environment can affect the resources available to bees. Doing so is of utmost importance, as improving pollinator resource availability and nutrition is one of the proposed mech...

An essential prerequisite to safeguard pollinator species is characterisation of the multifaceted diversity of crop pollinators and identification of the drivers of pollinator community changes across biogeographical gradients. The extent to which intensive agriculture is associated with the homogenisation of biological communities at large spatial...

Native bee species in the United States provide invaluable pollination services. Concerns about native bee declines are growing, and there are calls for a national monitoring program. Documenting species ranges at ecologically meaningful scales through coverage completeness analysis is a fundamental step to track bees from species to communities. I...

As the number of observations submitted to the citizen science platform iNaturalist continues to grow, it is increasingly important that these observations can be identified to the finest taxonomic level, maximizing their value for biodiversity research. Here, we explore the benefits of acting as an identifier on iNaturalist.

While many factors have been implicated in global pollinator decline, habitat loss is a key driver of wild pollinator decline in both abundance and species richness. An increase in and diversification of pollinator habitat, even in urban settings, can assist in the conservation of pollinator populations. In Southern California, a highly fragmented...

Non-native plant species can disrupt plant–pollinator interactions by altering pollinator foraging behavior, which can in turn affect levels of interspecific pollen transfer between native and non-native plant species. These processes may be amplified in cases where introduced plant species act as magnet taxa that enhance pollinator visitation to o...

Plant–pollinator interactions represent a crucial ecosystem function threatened by anthropogenic landscape changes. Disturbances that reduce plant diversity are associated with floral resource and pollinator declines. Establishing wildflower plantings is a major conservation strategy targeting pollinators, the success of which depends on long‐term...

The hazard pesticides pose to pollinators are well‐understood from laboratory studies. However, the field‐level response of pollinators to pesticide use in agroecosystems is not well‐established, nor is it clear if synergisms between pesticides affect pollinator visitation to crops. Here, we evaluated if fungicide and insecticide use posed a hazard...

Simple Summary Global climate change is causing more frequent and severe droughts, which can have serious impacts on our environment. To examine how a severe drought in 2014 impacted wild bees in scrub habitats of San Diego, California, we compared bee samples collected before and after the drought. We also investigated whether habitat loss and fra...

Pollination services are compromised by habitat destruction, land-use intensification, pesticides, and introduced species. How pollination services respond to such stressors depends on the capacity of pollinator assemblages to function in the face of environmental disruption. Here, we quantify how pollination services provided to a native plant cha...

Despite a large number of ecological studies that document diversity loss resulting from anthropogenic disturbance, surprisingly few consider how disturbance affects temporal patterns of diversity that result from seasonal turnover of species. Temporal dynamics can play an important role in the structure and function of biological assemblages. Here...

List of study plots in coastal sage scrub reserves and habitat fragments. (PDF)

Species list of bees collected in this study. (PDF)

R scripts used in core analyses. (PDF)

Description and explanation of study sites. (PDF)

1. Bees are ecologically important pollinators that are threatened by disease, habitat degradation, and habitat loss. Bee species that share ecological traits (e.g. body size, diet breadth, and sociality) may often respond similarly to environmental disturbance; however, few studies have examined the extent to which closely related, ecologically si...

Ants often visit flowers, but have only seldom been documented to provide effective pollination services. Floral visitation by ants can also compromise plant reproduction in situations where ants interfere with more effective pollinators. Introduced ants may be especially likely to reduce plant reproductive success through floral visitation, but ex...

Recent reports of pollinator declines have revealed a need to better document how anthropogenic disturbances and biogeography jointly influence wild pollinator communities. Here, we examine the effects of urbanization-induced habitat fragmentation on the native bee fauna inhabiting coastal sage scrub habitats of San Diego County, California, USA, a...

Triepeolus matildae Rightmyer, sp. nov., from Mexico (Baja California) and USA (California) is described and both genders are differentiated from the closely related species T. utahensis (Cockerell) using morphological characters. The synonymy of T. utahensis and T. heterurus was established in Rightmyer (2008); however, the younger name was used i...

Background/Question/Methods Urbanization often reduces pollinator diversity. Although specific life-history traits may allow certain pollinator species to tolerate anthropogenic disturbance, even outwardly similar species can exhibit divergent responses to land-use change. Here, we use GIS to identify landscape-level correlates of occurrence for...

Background/Question/Methods Introduced ants frequently enter into mutualisms with plants and other insects to obtain carbohydrate-rich resources. This phenomenon can disrupt mutualisms to the detriment of mutualist partners as well as give rise to ecological effects external to the mutualism itself. Observations of Argentine ant workers harassing...

Background/Question/Methods Evidence is mounting that pollinator assemblages are affected by human activities such as urbanization. Recent meta-analyses reveal that human-mediated habitat degradation tends to decrease pollinator diversity and preferentially extirpate specialist pollinators. However, few studies have examined how disturbance affect...

Mounting evidence indicates that trade-offs between plant defense and reproduction arise not only from resource allocation but also from interactions among mutualists. Indirect costs of plant defense by ants, for example, can outweigh benefits if ants deter pollinators. Plants can dissuade ants from occupying flowers, but such arrangements may brea...

Background/Question/Methods Bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) are an ecologically essential insect group currently thought to be undergoing global declines in diversity and abundance, with habitat fragmentation being a key driver of these declines. Here, we examine the response of native bee assemblages to urbanization-induced habitat fragmentation i...

The high levels of species diversity observed within many biological communities are captivating, yet the mechanisms that may maintain such diversity remain elusive. Many of the phenotypic differences observed among species cause interspecific tradeoffs that ultimately act to maintain diversity through niche-based coexistence. In contrast, neutral...