(2nd Place) The effects of resource competition between honey bees and native bees

Honey bees and native bees both perform important agricultural and ecosystem services while experiencing stress from habitat loss, pesticide exposure, and pathogens. The effects of these stressors are not independent within the landscape and native bee populations may be exacerbated by the presence of and/or competition with honey bee apiaries. Competition may result in shifts in the native bee community structure, depletion of pollen resources, and/or pathogen transmission. However, the implications of these interactions remain unclear. We addressed this knowledge gap by assessing native bee communities and pathogen presence at 5 locations with established ( >10 years) honey bee apiaries and at 5 sites with no documented histories of beekeeping. Locations were similar in surrounding landscape coverage within a 1km buffer and consisted of ≥70% agriculture (corn and soybean). Sampling efforts were conducted in 2022 and 2023 from May-September to capture native bee abundance/richness, assess bee visitation on selected flower patches through direct observations, and measure morphological characteristics of collected native bees. We additionally screened a subset of collected native bees for honey bee pathogens. Preliminary data analyses indicate that native bee abundance is non-significantly trending higher at sites without apiaries when compared to sites containing apiaries (p = 0.13). However, we expect these non-significant differences to become greater as more sites are analyzed, while other metrics, including honey bee pathogen load and flower visitation rates, are still to be assessed. These results will aid in future native bee research and conservation efforts.