Pollinator Habitat in Log Landings: Wild Bees

Wild bees are among the most diverse and important pollinators in forested ecosystems. Wild bees range in color from blue, brown, green, black, yellow and red and in size from an inch to smaller than a grain of rice. The vast majority of wild bees are solitary, meaning that the female bee creates a nest and cares for her offspring alone. Approximately 70 percent of wild bees nest in the ground. Other common nesting sites include coarse woody debris and hollow stemmed plants. In North America, an estimated 4,000 native bee species help to pollinate our ecosystems.

Populations of many wild bee species are declining worldwide. In the eastern and midwestern United States, one of the biggest drivers of the decline is habitat loss, including the loss of open forest habitats with understories that are rich in floral and nesting resources. Forest management, including timber harvesting, can be an important tool for restoring disturbance-dependent habitats that support diverse and abundant wild bee populations. Although log landings (places where loggers stack, sort, and load timber into trucks) are generally considered degraded habitats because the use of heavy equipment results in soil compaction and the removal of vegetation, these spaces offer opportunities for open, floral-rich habitat improvement. Managers at three midwestern National Forests (the Hoosier, Shawnee, and Mark Twain) identified similar challenges with managing log landings and shared a desire to provide pollinator habitat on log landings. Together with researchers from the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, they began the Pollinator Habitat in Log Landings project (PHiLL).