(2nd Place) Does the creation of pocket prairies on vacant lots improve bee habitat in a legacy city?

Legacy cities are afflicted with economic disinvestment, decreasing populations, and numerous social and political challenges. As people depart legacy cities for opportunities elsewhere, abandoned homes are demolished and transformed into vacant lots. These greenspaces have been demonstrated to provide habitat for urban wildlife and ecosystem services to communities. Vacant land is managed with monthly mowing and supports abundant bee forage in the form of urban spontaneous vegetation. In the legacy city of Cleveland, Ohio, 30% of the state’s bee fauna has been collected within vacant lots. Our goal was to determine if planting native wildflowers on vacant land would support a greater proportion of the regional bee species pool compared to unaltered vacant lots and surrounding Metropark grasslands. We hypothesized that urbanization would filter the bee community able to colonize these habitats, but native wildflowers would help retain a higher abundance and richness of wild bees in the pocket prairies and Metropark grasslands. Using pan traps and hand vacuums, we sampled bees in each treatment from June to September 2019. We collected 1,087 bees representing 24 genera and 83 species. Bees visited over 30 floral species, ranging from native wildflowers to urban spontaneous vegetation. Metropark grasslands supported bee communities that were distinct from those found in pocket prairies and vacant lots. Interestingly, Metropark grasslands and pocket prairies supported a higher bee abundance and richness compared to vacant lots. Our results suggest that investing in the creation of bee habitat can improve the habitat quality of vacant land in legacy cities.