@article {1618,
	title = {The effect of diet breadth and nesting ecology on body size variation in bees (Apiformes)},
	journal = {Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society},
	volume = {73},
	year = {2000},
	month = {2000///},
	pages = {180 - 193},
	abstract = {Body size in animals influences survival, fecundity, and mating opportunity. For bees, parental provisioning behavior largely controls offspring body size. Because larger offspring of many bee species have fitness advantages, selection on body size should act through selection on parental provisioning behavior and restrict body size variation of each species. Many bet species show great variability in body size, however, which may indicate that adult females are often constrained in their ability to consistently produce large offspring. We compared body size variation within bee species for two life history traits that could influence offspring body size: dietary breadth (specialist or generalist) and nesting habit (ground-nesting or cavity-nesting). We determined the head width (a reliable correlate of body size) of 2276 bees belonging to 31 bee species from five families and calculated the body size variation fur each species. Body size variation, measured as the coefficient of variation in head size, did not differ between pollen specialists (oligoleges) and pollen generalists (polyleges) across 13 pairs of closely-related, sympatric bee species of similar body size. Cavity-nesting species showed significantly greater variation in body size than ground-nesting species, which suggests that the choice of nest cavities utilized may be a more important predictor of offspring body size than parental body size. The cleptoparasite Coelioxys sayi had similar body size variation to one of its hosts, Megachile brevis. The European honey bee, Apis mellifera, showed the least body size variation of any species measured},
	keywords = {APIS, Apoidea, BEE SIZE, BEHAVIOR, BEHAVIOR-NESTING, CLEPTOPARASITE, ECOLOGY, FITNESS, LARVAL PROVISIONS, LIFE HISTORY, MEGACHILE, MORPHOLOGY, OLIGOLECTY, POLLEN, POLYLECTY, SELECTION, SIZE, VARIATION},
	author = {Roulston,T.H. and Cane, J. H.}
}
@article {1579,
	title = {Complex responses within a desert bee guild (Hymenoptera: Apiformes) to urban habitat fragmentation},
	journal = {Ecological Applications},
	volume = {16},
	year = {2006},
	month = {2006///submitted},
	pages = {632 - 644},
	abstract = {Urbanization within the Tucson basin of Arizona during the past 50+ years has fragmented the original desert scrub into patches of different sizes and ages. These remnant patches, like the surrounding desert, are dominated by Larrea tridentata (creosote bush), a long-lived, evergreen shrub whose flowers are visited by more than 120 native bee species across its range. Twenty-one of these bee species restrict their pollen foraging to L. tridentata. To evaluate the response of this native bee fauna to fragmentation, we compared species incidence and abundance patterns for the bee guild visiting Larrea at 59 habitat fragments of known size (0.002-5 ha) and age (up to 70 years), and in adjacent desert. The 62 bee species caught during this study responded to fragmentation heterogeneously and not in direct relation to their abundance or incidence in undisturbed desert. Only a few species found in continuous desert outside the city were entirely absent from urban fragments. Species of ground-nesting Larrea specialists were under-represented in smaller fragments and less abundant in the smaller and older fragments. In contrast, cavity-nesting bees (including one Larrea specialist) were over-represented in the habitat fragments, probably due to enhanced nesting opportunities available in the urban matrix. Small-bodied bee species were no more likely than larger-bodied species to be absent from the smaller fragments. The introduced European honeybee, Apis mellifera, was a minor faunal element at >90\% of the fragments and exerted little if any influence on the response patterns of native bee species to fragmentation. Overall, native bee response to urban habitat fragmentation was best predicted by ecological traits associated with nesting and dietary breadth. The consequences for the floral host and its pollination interactions are not intuitive but await investigation.},
	keywords = {Apoidea, BEE SIZE, CONSERVATION, FRAGMENTATION, GUILD, HABITAT, INCOMPLETE, LARREA, OLIGOLECTY},
	author = {Cane, J. H. and Minckley,R. and Roulston,T. and Kervin,L.J. and Williams,N.M.}
}
