Linking pollinators and city flora: how vegetation composition and environmental features shapes pollinators composition in urban environment

Abstract Urban green areas are an important part of the cities that provide ‘novel ecosystem’ for the preservation of many plants and animals. Pollinators are the one animal group that are well adapted to live in the urban environment. However, not all green areas in the city affect pollinators equally, which is associated with management practices, vegetation composition, and distance to the city center. Our study was aimed to assess how environmental features and vegetation composition shape the pollinator communities in different habitats in the city. Forty seven squares in the three different urban green areas (i.e., urban grassland, housing estate, urban park) were established in the Poznan city, where the bees, butterflies, and hoverflies were surveyed. On each square, the vegetation and environmental features were estimated. Plant communities’ composition was different between three habitats, which affected pollinators’ compositions in the city. The NMDS analyses showed that in the case of bees and butterflies, plant height and share of built-up area explain a high percentage of the variance. Additionally, the Plantaginaceae, Boraginaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, Ranunculaceae and Caryophyllaceae families had a significant impact on pollinators. Plants form these families are characterized by the flowers from opened to closed corollas (flag-, bell-, gullet-, tube-, capitulum-shaped), which provide access to nectar and pollen for different pollinator groups. This study demonstrated that both environmental and vegetation features had a significant effect on pollinators species communities’ composition, which is indirectly relate to management practices of these greenery areas. The management policy of greenery landscapes in the city, especially in more transformed areas like urban parks and housing estates, must consider restricted implement actions leading to a reduction of the number of mowing or/and leaving un-mowed foraging patches for pollinators.