Building height matters: nesting activity of bees and wasps on vegetated roofs

Abstract

Vegetated, “green” infrastructure, including terraces, balconies, and vegetated roofs and walls are increasingly common in urban landscapes, elevating habitat into novel contexts above ground. Highly mobile species, like bees and wasps, are often seen foraging on green infrastructure, but whether nesting opportunities are facilitated is not known. Cavity-nesting bees and wasps that provision brood in human-made trap nests were monitored over three years on 29 vegetated and non-vegetated roofs in Toronto, Canada. The study identified 27 species nesting on rooftops but found that building height was negatively correlated with the abundance of brood cells provisioned in trap nests, and positively correlated with the number of unfinished nests. A decline in green space area within a 600 m radius around each rooftop resulted in decreasing species richness and abundance. Although the introduced bee, Megachile rotundata (Fabricius) occupied more sites than any other bee or wasp (27.6%) and was the most abundant ...