Ecology of Urban Bees: Preference for Native Plants in the Green Spaces of Quito

Ecology of Urban Bees: Preference for Native Plants in the Green Spaces of Quito | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Ecology of Urban Bees: Preference for Native Plants in the Green Spaces of Quito Esteban Poveda-Proaño, Emilia Moreno-Coellar, Raul Ontaneda -Gallegos, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9246974/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Across the Andes, bees are a heavily understudied group of insects, and despite it being seemingly counterintuitive, urban ecosystems are home to some of the least studied bees in the region. This, combined with the largely modified plant communities that characterize South American urban green spaces, where European and North American flora often rivals in abundance and richness with that of native plants, makes it so Andean cities like Quito, Ecuador, are perfect for studying both the ecology of bee pollinators, as well as the impact that exotic species have on native bees. We reviewed the reported diversity and interactions inside citizen science platform iNaturalist and in local entomological collections, and we also conducted direct observations on 5 native and 3 exotic plant species inside a city park during a four-month period, of which 6 species produced sufficient flowering for analysis, all in order to answer: 1) What is the diversity and spatial distribution of bee species and their plant associations across the urban green spaces of Quito? 2) Do native bee species show stronger preferences for native versus exotic flowering plants, and which plant species are most important for urban pollinators? We were able to identify 31 morphospecies belonging to five bee families, of which only one species was exotic. When excluding the exotic Apis mellifera , all four native bee families showed preference towards native flowering plants, although most bees were also shown to be polylectic, capable of visiting other flowers whenever their preferred food source was not available. We determined that abundance and richness of native plants held the highest correlation with native bee diversity, and we also identified Dalea coerula, Bidens andicola and Lupinus pubescens as the most important plants for urban pollinators inside the city of Quito. Overall, the implementation of native plant patches inside urban greenspaces is a decisive factor for bee conservancy in urban ecosystems of South America. Biodiversity Citizen science Native bees Pollination Urban ecology Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Introduction Traditionally, urban ecosystems have been associated with low biodiversity. However, studies conducted over the last decade have demonstrated that, depending on habitat quality, cities can be home to a diverse array of insect pollinators such as bees and may even have higher native plant diversity than surrounding rural landscapes (Bates et al. 2011 ; Kowarik 2011 ). Moreover, although often overlooked, urban ecosystems provide their inhabitants with various ecosystem services dependent on their species’ richness and abundance. These services include cooling effects, crop pollination and air quality improvement, all of which are in turn determined by the size of urban green spaces (Kremen et al. 2004 ; Aram et al. 2019 ; Islam et al. 2024 ). Along with native plant coverage remnants, parks are the largest green spaces within cities. Their high accessibility allows city inhabitants to interact with nature without leaving the urban landscape. These experiences enrich the city-dwellers’ lifestyle and fulfill important psychological needs (Chiesura 2004 ). In urban ecosystems, parks are where biodiversity often reaches its peak (Nielsen et al. 2014 ), although this depends on the park’s size and landscape configuration. Even when comparing parks of similar size and proximity to forest remnants, other factors play a key role in understanding the composition of ground dwelling invertebrates such as the density of surrounding manmade structures and ground features (Peng et al. 2020 ). Therefore, its possible that these characteristics also determine the diversity of pollinators, such as ground-nesting bees. Additionally, vegetation composition within a park also affects the quality of services provided along with the diversity associated with said services. More homogenous parks tend to have lower species richness while heterogeneous green spaces, particularly mixed forests, host richer communities, providing higher quality ecosystem services (Nielsen et al. 2014 ; Mexia et al. 2018 ). Flora and its pollinators are two key components of both natural and urban ecosystems. While both groups are often studied independently inside urban ecosystems, research that encompasses both flora and fauna in a multidisciplinary, multi-species approach is rare but necessary to better understand biodiversity patterns in parks and other urban green spaces (Nielsen et al. 2014 ). Among pollinators, bees (Anthophila) are exceptional, as they are responsible for approximately 80% of the insect-driven pollination as well as the pollination of more than 60% of the world’s crops (Kremen et al. 2004 ; Thapa 2006 ). Consequently, a significant decline in bee diversity could cause the setting rates of various crops to drop (Klein et al. 2003 ). Even within cities, bees are often the most efficient pollinators available, though not necessarily the most abundant; this is especially true for native bees (Hausmann et al. 2016 ). A key unanswered question in plant-bee interactions is whether or not bees have a preference towards native plants. Current research suggests the answer is context-dependent, with studies supporting both hypotheses (Nicholls and Altieri 2013 ; Pardee and Philpott 2014 ; Philpott et al. 2023 ). Increasing urbanization and other changes in land use are worldwide threats to bee populations. While urban green spaces may be suitable for bees to inhabit, the surrounding urban infrastructure also determines the number of bee species that could be able to live in these environments (Ahrné et al. 2009 ). Additionally, changes in the diversity and availability of floral resources also shape the pollinator communities of cities (Potts et al. 2010 ). In South America (SoAm), another threat to bee conservation is the expansion of the agricultural and livestock frontier (Freitas et al. 2009 ), as these areas often supply food to growing urban populations. Consequently, creating spaces that benefit the pollinators inside our cities has become both a need and a responsibility. Planting vegetation that benefits native bees can increase their abundance and richness, without sacrificing ornamental appeal (Frankie et al. 2005 ; Frankie et al. 2009 ). Different bee species can have preferences towards different plant families, such as Asteraceae or Lamiaceae, preferred by bees from the families Halictidae and Apidae respectively (Frankie et al. 2009 ). Because of this, understanding the preferences of the bee communities inside a city or wider biogeographic region is the first step toward achieving a successful habitat restoration. Understanding the interactions between exotic and native species becomes more important in SoAm, where plant species’ richness in urban parks appears to be higher for invasive plant species and lower for natives when compared to cities in North America, Europe or Asia (Nielsen et al. 2014 ; Figueroa et al. 2018 ). If bees in SoAm are shown to prefer native food sources, then urban parks should prioritize including a greater diversity of plant species that are preferred by local pollinators. The number of studies that describe the determinants of bee diversity and ensembles conducted in SoAm are about 4.5 times lower than those conducted in North America or Europe, with only a small number focused on high Andean cities (Prendergast et al. 2022 ). In this study, we describe the relationship between bee pollinators and their native and exotic plant hosts in the green spaces within the urban parishes of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ for its Spanish acronym), Ecuador. We assessed bee and plant abundance and richness using records from scientific collections and the citizen science platform iNaturalist ( https://ecuador.inaturalist.org/ ). We then carried out several field surveys in a city park, where we observed six species of plants and the pollinators that visited them, recording the number of flowers per plant, the ambient temperature and the overall richness of flowering plants at the time of each survey. We aimed to answer the following questions: 1) What is the diversity and spatial distribution of bee species and their plant associations across the urban green spaces of Quito? 2) Do native bee species show stronger preferences for native versus exotic flowering plants, and which plant species are most important for urban pollinators? Materials and Methods 1. Study Design Overview We combined two complementary approaches operating at different spatial scales: (1) a city-wide analysis of bee occurrence and bee–plant interaction data derived from museum collections and citizen science records across the DMQ, and (2) standardized field observations of bee visitation to selected native and exotic plant species within a single metropolitan park. This dual-scale approach allowed us to evaluate general patterns of bee diversity and plant associations across the city while also directly quantifying visitation frequency, richness, and community composition under controlled field conditions. 2. City-Scale Patterns of Bee Diversity and Bee–Plant Interactions 2.1. Study Area The DMQ is the canton that contains Ecuador’s capital and its surrounding localities. It is located in the northern highlands of the country, as part of the Pichincha province, at a median altitude of 2 620 meters above sea level. The city is located across inter-volcanic valleys and is crossed by multiple small rivers that feed the Guayllabamba river basin. Quito has two seasons: a cold, wet season from October to May, and a warmer, dry season from June to September, with an average difference of only 0.9°C between the hottest and coldest months (15.3°C and 14.4°C respectively) (World Meteorological Organization 2013 ). The temperature is higher during the peak activity hours for bees, at around 17.5°C. The DMQ is the second most populated city of Ecuador, with over 2 679 722 inhabitants and a high population density of approximately 4 735 residents per square kilometer (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos 2022 ). Because of this, the DMQ is highly urbanized, and little of its original plant coverage remains, primarily as remnants surrounding rivers or within ravines. Despite this, the DMQ contains more than 1 355 parks and green areas, including 15 metropolitan parks that together cover approximately 1 960 ha. These parks form corridors that allow the movement of native flora and fauna across the city while also combining patches of exotic vegetation, such as eucalyptus forests, grasslands and lawns. The DMQ is administratively divided into urban, suburban and rural parishes. In this study, we focused on the 32 urban parishes (Fig. 1 ). 2.2. Data Collection To explore the bee diversity and its interactions with the urban flora we downloaded bee occurrence records within the DMQ, directly from iNaturalist ( https://ecuador.inaturalist.org/ ; only “research grade” records). We selected the observations to include only records from urban parishes, and then we curated them to either genus or species level by comparing the photographs with reference material from the Museum of Zoology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (QCAZ) and using regional identification keys and historical species lists (Cockerell 1914 ; Mitchell 1930 ; Michener 2007 ; Moreno-Coellar et al. 2025 ) which we used to construct a species list (Table 1 ). All observations that featured bee-plant interactions were further curated to identify the associated plant species and family, with identifications validated in the PUCE QCA Herbarium. Additionally, we also downloaded data of occurrence via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF; https://www.gbif.org/ ; only museum records) database. 2.3. Selection of Focal Plant Families To identify the plant groups most relevant to urban bee diversity within the DMQ, the interaction records from the city-scale dataset were aggregated at the plant family level. Plant families whose data accounted for more than 10% of the total number of recorded interactions were retained for further analysis. For each of these families, we downloaded all plant observations, curated them, and assigned an origin value (native or exotic) to each species using the Plants of the World Online database and the new catalogue for continental Ecuador exotic flora to assign the origin status to each species (Ileana et al. 2025 ; Royal Botanical Gardens 2025 ). 2.4. Distribution of Quito’s bees We uploaded the data to ArcGIS ( https://www.arcgis.com ) where, using the coordinates available from some museum data and iNaturalist observations, we were able to determine the bee richness relative to area of each of the urban parishes; we also calculated the plant richness and abundance relative to area for all of the parishes. Using this data, we determined which areas of the DMQ had the highest bee diversity relative to area and we also made four line graphs to visualize how the distribution of the bee species richness and the abundance and richness of plants correlated. Additionally, we created a visual heat map (Fig. 2 ) to identify the parishes that hosted the highest bee diversity. 3. Field Assessment of Bee–Plant Interactions 3.1. Selection of Focal Plant Species To evaluate bee visitation to native and exotic plants under controlled field conditions, we selected flowering plant species based on their prominence in the city-scale bee–plant interaction dataset. Plant species were chosen to represent the most frequently visited taxa by native bees. In total, eight plant species were selected for monitoring: five natives and three exotics. Native species included Dalea coerulea (L.f.) Schinz & Thell., Lupinus pubescens Benth., Bidens andicola Kunth., and Monnina salicifolia Ruiz & Pav., which showed a high number of interactions with native bees in the city-wide dataset. Exotic species included Hypochaeris radicata L. and Trifolium repens L., selected as exotic counterparts to native species within the families Asteraceae and Fabaceae, respectively. In addition, Salvia microphylla Kunth. was selected due to its high number of recorded interactions, and Salvia pauciserrata Benth. was included as its native counterpart within Lamiaceae. In the event that any selected species failed to produce sufficient flowers during the sampling period, those species would be excluded from the interaction analysis but retained in the park survey effort. 3.2. Field Study Site All field surveys were conducted within Bicentenario Metropolitan Park, a large urban green area selected because it contains a combination of exotic and native vegetation and because it was the only metropolitan park that already included all eight plant species selected for study. The park covers 103 ha and is located on the site of the city's former airport. Several ecological restoration efforts have been implemented within the park, resulting in large areas of native vegetation composed primarily of trees but also some bushes and herbaceous plants. The park also has grass lawns, where exotic Asteraceae and Fabaceae are the predominant flowering species, as well as various trails and a sports track adapted from the former airplane runway (Fig. 1 ) (EPMMOP 2024 ). Each plant species was represented by two individual specimens within the park. All plants were located within approximately one hectare of one another, and a 1 m² observation quadrant was established for each individual plant (Fig. 1 ). We acknowledge that two individuals per species constitutes limited replication. This was constrained by the availability of naturally occurring specimens within the park, as Bicentenario was the only metropolitan park containing all selected species simultaneously, making it unfeasible to increase replication by sampling across multiple parks. 3.3. Observation and Collection Protocol We relied on direct observation, paired with monthly hand nettings, to monitor the bees inside the park. We conducted observations twice a week, from May to August, in order to determine which bee species were feeding on each flower. To achieve this, we observed quadrants of one square meter for ten minutes at a time. We annotated every bee and other pollinators that were actively feeding on the flowers, nectar robbing was also considered, as in the case of carpenter bees that would often pierce the flower's corollas to access their food (Rojas-Nossa et al. 2016 ). We identified the bees to genus level, or in the case it was possible, to species level, while non-bee pollinators were identified only to family level ( Supplementary 1 ). Since most insect pollinators are more active during warm, clear days, we only conducted our observations between 10 and 12:30 am, when the temperature was up to three degrees lower or higher than the average (17.5° ± 3° C); we also canceled the observations on rainy days. Before starting each observation, we annotated the date, temperature and the number of inflorescences of the selected plant species inside the quadrant, each day we carried out observations on every plant species selected, in a randomized order. In case some of the plant species didn’t have any mature flowers, we annotated both the number of visits and the number of flowers as zero. We used the hand netting to collect bee species that were difficult to identify by sight only, this included small halictids or colletids. We conducted the nettings once a month, on days where no direct observations were carried out, along with them, we also photographed bees and other pollinators to document their interactions. We compared the bees collected with the ones held at the invertebrate section of QCAZ and the National Institute of Biodiversity (INABIO) using taxonomic keys for each bee group (Friese 1899 ; Cockerell 1914 ; Moure 1964 ; Silveira et al. 2002 ; Gonzalez and Michener 2004 ; Roig Alsina 2009 ; Ferrari 2017 ; Packer 2021 ; Moreno-Coellar et al. 2025 ) 4. Bee–Plant Interactions To characterize patterns of interaction between bees and flowering plants in Quito, we constructed two sets of bipartite bee–plant interaction networks. The first one used the citizen science dataset including plants from the eight most frequently visited plant families for the urban parishes of the DMQ, we built one network that showed the interactions between native bee morphospecies and plant species. Since the data we recovered can’t be used to accurately portray the preference bee species may have towards different food sources, this network only explores the diversity of interactions within the city. Because of this, we converted the data into a binary dataset, where 1 meant the interaction between a bee and a plant species had been recorded and 0 meant it had not. For the second set of networks we used the dataset containing data from the six plant species monitored at the Bicentenario metropolitan park. We created three distinct networks. The first one showed the links between the bee species and the six plant species, the second showed the links between the bee species and the plants classified by their origin (native or exotic), and the third showed the links between the four bee families found at the Bicentenario park and the plants classified by their origin. The monitoring allowed us to accurately portray the abundance each bee species had at each of the six plant hosts, thus, the networks of this set show the preference bee species have towards different taxa. For both sets of networks, each plant species was classified according to its geographical origin (endemic, native, or exotic) following the catalogues of Jørgensen & León-Yánez (1999) and Herrera et al. (2025). We calculated the species degree (the number of interacting species from the opposite trophic level) for each network. All networks were constructed in R version 4.3.1 (R Core Team, 2023) using the bipartite package v2.18 (Dormann et al., 2008). The networks presented here are intended as qualitative visualizations of interaction structure. No additional network-level metrics were calculated, as the primary statistical comparisons between native and exotic plant use were addressed through the PERMANOVA analyses described below. 5. Statistical analysis We analyzed the interactions observed at Bicentenario park to test whether variation in bee abundance at native and exotic plants was greater within groups or between groups to assess the significance of the differences between the communities of bees that visited each group. We applied a Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA) using the 'vegan' package in R, with 10 000 permutations, based on Bray-Curtis dissimilarity calculated from square-root transformed bee abundance data, grouping the two exotic plants’ data as group one and the four native plants’ data as group two. We then repeated this analysis to test if the variation in bee abundance was greater among different host plant species than among different sampling events of the same plant species. Finally, to evaluate the similarity between the bee communities associated with each plant species, and the similarity in host plant use between bee species, we generated two projections of the bipartite networks using the ‘igraph’ R package using the function bipartite_projection, creating two graphs labelled as proj1 for the similarities among plants and proj2 for the similarities among bees. Results 1. City-Scale Patterns of Bee Diversity and Bee–Plant Interactions We retrieved a total of 755 bee occurrence records between museum data from GBIF (130) and citizen science data from iNaturalist (625). All five bee families reported for Ecuador were also recorded within the city: Apidae, Megachilidae, Halictidae, Colletidae and Andrenidae. We registered a total of 31 morphospecies (Table 1 ), most of which belonged to Apidae (13) and Halictidae (7), Megachilidae (5) and Colletidae (5) tied for the second lowest species richness and Andrenidae had only one species. In terms of relative abundance, Apidae (72.58%) also had the highest number of collections and observations, followed by Megachilidae (11.52%), Halictidae (10.46%) and Colletidae (5.43%). The most frequently recorded species were Thygater aethiops (Smith, 1854) (17.09%), Xylocopa viridigastra Lepeletier, 1841 (14.97%) and Bombus robustus Smith, 1854 (13.38%). Of the 625 iNaturalist observations, 333 showed native bees interacting with identifiable plant species. These interactions involved plants from 15 families of which the most frequently visited were Fabaceae (101), Lamiaceae (88) and Asteraceae (76). Fabaceae was important for Apidae and Megachilidae, 40.93% and 31.15% respectively of these bees’ interactions were with this family. Lamiaceae was primarily visited by Apidae (40.41%). Asteraceae was most frequently visited by Halictidae (72.88%) and to a lesser extent Megachilidae (26.27%). Polygalaceae was the family Colletidae interacted with the most, with 75% of Colletidae interactions occurring with species of the genus Monnina (Table 2 , Fig. 3 ). The bipartite network of the citizen science data set showed 132 types of interactions between 43 plant species and 20 bee species within the DMQ (Fig. 3 ). Dalea coerulea was the plant that showed the highest number of links, interacting with 13 bee species, followed by Hypochaeris radicata (9) and Bidens andicola (7). On the other hand, the bee that showed the highest number of links was Megachile sp. as this bee interacted with 20 plant species, followed by T. aethiops (15), Anthophora pillifrons Packard, 1869 (12), B. funebris (11) and X. viridigastra (11). Family Andrenidae was not included in the network as the sole representative of this family, Andinopanurgus amyae (Gonzalez & Engel, 2011) had only one interaction record. Eight plant families were involved in 80% of the interactions with bees: Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Solanaceae, Lamiaceae, Rosaceae, Onagraceae, Polygalaceae, and Rutaceae. Most of the reported bee richness came from large urban parks, making the parishes of Iñaquito and Jipijapa the most rich in bee species (Fig. 2 ). Native plant richness was the best indicator for native bee richness as the line graphs showed that the native plant richness relative to area and native bee richness relative to area resembled each other the most (Fig. 4 ). Additionally, we uploaded to iNaturalist all digital evidence of the interactions photographed while monitoring inside the Bicentenario Park, to provide evidence of the interactions occurring between plants and pollinators inside the city, these interactions include visits to plants that were not considered in the monitorings but were flowering between the quadrants (Fig. 5 ). 2. Field Assessment of Bee–Plant Interactions During field surveys, we registered 16 bee species (Table 1 ) interacting with the eight selected flowers within Bicentenario metropolitan park. An additional bee species, Thygater aethiops , was recorded within the park; however, it only fed on Solanum nigrescens , a plant species not considered in this study. Of the 16 bee species recorded, only one was exotic, Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758, while all others were native to the area. Bees belonged to four families, with Apidae being the most diverse. We recorded 6 species from Apidae, 3 for Megachilidae, 4 for Halictidae, and 3 for Colletidae. Due to the difficulties in identifying free-flying bees, we decided to group both morphospecies of Megachile Latreille, 1802, as well as both morphospecies of Colletes Latreille, 1802 (Table 3 ). 3. Bee–Plant Interactions Two of the initially selected species ( Monnina salicifolia and Salvia microphylla ) did not flower sufficiently during the sampling period and were excluded from the quantitative analysis, as established in the study design. All subsequent analyses are therefore based on the remaining six species. The network showed 554 interactions between 16 bee species and the six remaining plant species (Fig. 6 , Table 3 ). Of these interactions, 420 (75.81%) were between bees and native plant species, the other 134 (24.19%) were between bees and exotic plants (Fig. 7 ). The plant species with the highest number of links was D. coerulea , which received 283 visits from bee pollinators. The plant species with the lowest number of interactions were S. pauciserrata (Lamiaceae, native) and L. pubescens (Fabaceae, native) with 40 visits each. D. coerulea (Fabaceae, native) also had the highest bee species richness (10 species), followed by B. andicola (Asteraceae, native) with 8 species. (Table 4 ). The bee species with the highest number of links was A. mellifera (Apidae), with a total of 139 recorded visits, mainly to exotic plant species (84.17%). Megachile sp. (Megachilidae, native) held the second highest number of interactions at 132, all of which were with native species (Fig. 6 ). The rarest bee species were Caupolicana niveofasciata Friese, 1898 (Colletidae, native), observed only once visiting the native B. andicola , and an unidentified species of Exomalopsis Spinola, 1853 (Apidae, native), which was recorded once visiting the exotic T. repens. Most of the native bees recorded were ground-nesting solitary bees (gs) (60.48%), followed by ground-nesting eusocial bees (ge) (17.83%) and wood-nesting gregarious bees (wg) (15.42%). The abundant gs bees were mainly polylectic, visiting both native and exotic flowers of various families. ge bees, on the other hand, preferred native Fabaceae ( D. coerulea and L. pubescens ), but when these plants had a low floral availability, they would also rob nectar from S. pauciserrata . A similar pattern was observed for ws bees. Finally, cuckoo bees would feed on the same flowers as their hosts from the genus Megachile (Table 3 ). Four bee families interacted with the targeted plant species. Ranked from most to least abundant these were: Apidae (50.54%), Megachilidae (26.35%), Halictidae (21.29%) and Colletidae (1.81%). If we exclude A. mellifera , Apidae represented only 33.97% of recorded bees. When excluding the exotic A. mellifera , all four bee families showed preference for native flowers over exotic ones ( Supplementary 2 ). 4. Statistical analysis Analysis of the citizen science dataset showed that bees interacted more often with native plants (54.65%) rather than with exotic plants (45.35%). These interactions varied among bee families. Colletidae and Megachilidae were more frequently observed to interact with native plants (85% and 68.85% respectively). Apidae also interacted more with native plants (52.33%), whereas Halictidae interacted more frequently with exotic plants (62.71%). The plant species with the highest number of interactions were Dalea coerulea (17.12%), Salvia microphylla (12.31%), Hypochaeris radicata (11.11%), Trifolium pratense (6.91%), and Bidens andicola (5.11%). Overall, native plants interacted with a significantly higher abundance of bees than exotic plants did. Analysis of the Bicentenario park monitoring showed that bees belonging to the family Apidae were largely polylectic, with only three species recorded visiting a single plant host, meanwhile, the other three families had considerably more oligolectic species. Megachilidae bees largely (p = 1.67e-4) preferred native Fabaceae, with only one species also visiting B. andicola . Contrary to what the network created with citizen science data (Fig. 3 ) suggested, Colletidae species were not strictly oligolectic and actually visited flowers from different families, such as Asteraceae and Fabaceae, although their strong preference towards native species was corroborated (Table 2 , Table 3 ). Bee interactions with native and exotic plants were significantly different (PERMANOVA, p = 1e-5), with most interactions occurring with native plant species. Bee interactions with each plant species were significantly different (PERMANOVA, p = 1e-6). Discussion Our research demonstrates that museological and citizen science data can be used to explore the bee richness inside urban ecosystems, like the urban parishes of Quito. It has been proven that photographic surveys can provide abundance estimates similar to the ones obtained by hand nettings and can also provide realistic diversity estimates especially when conducted by researchers, while photographic surveys conducted by citizen scientists show some biases towards larger bees but an overall similarity to the results obtained by researchers (Fogel et al. 2025 ); another study, conducted at Ecuador’s coastal region, provided an assessment of the bee richness inside an organic farm using live photography of lethargic bees who were later released into the wild (Wilson et al. 2025 ). We believe that ecological data can be obtained via well standardized field observations and photography, aided but not reliant on citizen science data as a tool to obtain a general understanding of a broader area. On the other hand, taxonomic data is still dependent on collections, our field monitoring, as well as the Wilson et al. ( 2025 ) assessment could not identify bees to species level due to the limitations of direct observation and photography. Additionally, the high number of cryptic species found in invertebrates, estimated to be on average 3.1 cryptic species per described insect species, highlights the importance of molecular data when describing or identifying species (Li and Wiens 2023 ). Currently iNaturalist includes a feature, that allows users to tag plant-pollinator interactions, with observation fields such as “Nectar plant” and “Nectar/Pollen delivering plant”, which have the potential to facilitate exploratory analysis like the one conducted in this study. We recommend that features like this should be made accessible from the iNaturalist mobile app, as right now observation fields can only be added from the computer version of this platform, which might be one of the reasons this valuable function is underused. Although we only used research grade observations for our research, observations classified as “Needs ID” can hold useful information that’s often overlooked by researchers. In the case of the bees of the DMQ, insects belonging to the family Andrenidae have been observed inside the urban parishes, but because these bees were only curated to family level, we did not find them when filtering for research grade observations. Future studies should make the additional effort to review all observations available and not only those of research grade. iNaturalist, where the taxonomic certainty of its observations is limited by the quality of the photographic evidence uploaded, might be more suited to monitoring and describing the ecology of larger bees, as it has been proven that citizen science data might be far more efficient than traditional methods at recording presence data from either invasive or endangered large-bodied bees (Wilson et al. 2020 ; Orr et al. 2023 ). In the context of SoAm, the quick identification of invasive species is key to protect the native pollinators and apps like iNaturalist might be the first to alert the scientific community of threats like the invasive Bombus terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758), whose range has been steadily increasing in the southern part of the continent (Geslin and Morales 2015 ; Aizen et al. 2019 ; Fontúrbel et al. 2021 ). Overall, we believe that citizen science data can contribute with a wider lens to understanding the pollination ecology of urban ecosystems as it provides data from a broader area than most traditional monitorings could achieve, but its limitations to accurately portray the richness and abundance of native pollinators highlights the need for field monitoring conducted by researchers or by citizens under the supervision of trained staff. We combined citizen science data with direct observations conducted inside a city park where we were able to describe the bee communities associated with six urban plant hosts that were part of a diverse floral neighborhood. We used a combination of direct observation, photography and nettings to document the bees present at metropolitan park Bicentenario, where we were able to identify 16 bee morphotypes. We conducted as few nettings as possible, trying to collect only a male and a female of each species for identification purposes only, as the local bee fauna remains largely undescribed or understudied. We believe that, in ecosystems with low bee abundance, it is best not to conduct large scale collections as they are likely to cause harm to the bee communities that are already threatened by habitat loss and their host plants’ replacement with ornamental species. Tepedino and Portman ( 2021 ) also suggest that continuous, large-scale monitoring may worsen the status of bee communities, causing them to decline faster; they also suggest that non-lethal monitoring can provide valuable data in species that are identifiable on the field. We extend this assertion to bees that can’t be identified to species level on the field but whose conservation status hasn’t been assessed, we believe that it is better to keep ecological data up to genus level, rather than risking the safety of bee populations with intensive collections. We were able to identify most bees present at Quito and inside the Bicentenario park to species level by examining the museological specimens at the QCAZ invertebrate collection and the ones we netted at Bicentenario park. Contrastingly, most identifications done in the field and obtained from iNaturalist data were left on genus level, as many bee species can only be accurately identified when examined under a stereoscope. We registered 31 different bee species inside the urban parishes of Quito. This equates to around 10% of the reported bee richness of Ecuador (305 species) and around 5% of the country’s estimated richness, which is situated at around 600 species (Freitas et al. 2009 ; Dorey et al. 2026 ). It should be noted that no bees belonging to the Andrenidae family are listed as part of the Ecuadorian bee diversity by Freitas et al. ( 2009 ) but at least three Andrenidae bee species collected in Ecuador can be found in the QCAZ collections, which suggests that both the reported and the estimated richness can be higher inside the region. Bee richness inside the city of Quito is low when compared with other capitals and large cities of the Americas, across four studies from four different countries the lowest richness was found inside the capital of Colombia, Bogotá, with 40 species; the highest richness was that of the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, with 66 species (Nates-Parra et al. 2006 ; Mazzeo and Torretta 2015 ). Cities in North America are also home to a higher bee richness than that of Quito, with over 50 species in New York (United States of America) and Vancouver (Canada) (Tommasi et al. 2004 ; Matteson et al. 2008 ). The apparently low richness of Quito might be caused by a combination of poorly known bee diversity and the prevalence of exotic plants in urban green spaces. It is possible that the high bee richness found inside of Quito, relative to the total richness of Ecuador, can be explained by the environment and ecosystem the city was built on top of. Globally, bee richness can be associated with low precipitation during the driest months as well as low seasonality, additionally, bees seem to be more diverse in non-forested ecosystems, such as deserts, bushlands or grasslands (Orr et al. 2021 ; Dorey et al. 2026 ), all of which are characteristics shared with the city of Quito. Bee communities differed significantly among plant species, most bees visited several species (polylecty), while three bee species were recorded on a single plant family or tribe (oligolecty). No bee species were determined to visit a single plant species (monolecty). The low number of oligolectic and monolectic species might be explained by the highly fragmented nature of urban green spaces, which, together with the extent of the city, have been associated with reduced diversity of specialist bees (Ferrari and Polidori 2022 ). Bees belonging to families Colletidae and Halictidae were the only ones to consistently show a preference towards one or few plant families. Bees belonging to the Colletidae family were shown to prefer plants from the families Polygalaceae and Fabaceae as their food sources. Plants belonging to the genus Monnina (Polygalaceae) and Dalea (Fabaceae) were frequently associated with colletids from the genus Colletes as well as Caupolicana niveofasciata Friese, 1898. Previous studies in the region have not described preferences between these genera, although Monnina has previously been reported to interact with Colletes a nd Caupolicana , albeit based on anecdotal observations only (Melo 2025 ). A bee from a related genus, Mourecolletes brasiliensis has been reported to have a strong preference towards Fabaceae and Polygalaceae, with these families summing up to 98.5% of the pollen grains found inside the nests of this species (Ferrari et al. 2022 ). We found that bees belonging to the Halictidae family often exhibited a broad polylecty and interactions with several bee families were recorded. Despite this, our data also showed that halictids have a preference towards yellow flowers within the Asteraceae family, this preference was most noticeable amongst citizen science data. It’s possible that this apparent preference is mainly motivated by floral availability and proximity to the nesting sites of these bees as it has been reported by other authors (Roberts 1969 ; Celis et al. 2023 ). In some cases, like with Agapostemon nasutus and Lasioglossum sp. this preference might go beyond floral availability, as these bees rarely or never foraged on other abundant species and instead frequented the Asteraceae Bidens andicola and Hypochaeris radicata even when this species had a low floral availability. Other authors have also documented the preference that some halictids have towards rare plant species and have speculated that it might be explained by other factors like the fact that Asteraceae provides its pollinators with both pollen and nectar while other plant families only offer one of these two resources (Dalmazzo and Vossler 2015 ; Filho et al. 2023 ). The cleptoparasite bees of the genus Coelioxys also exhibited a preference towards a specific plant family, Fabaceae. At Park Bicentenario their foraging behavior mirrored that of their possible hosts, Megachile antisanillae and M. ecuadoria , all three species visited almost exclusively two native legumes ( Dalea coerulea a nd Lupinus pubescens ). Literature describing the foraging preferences of Coelioxys adults is extremely scarce but the reproductive behavior and larval development of this genus have been reported to align closely with their host’s (Scott et al. 2000 ; Rozen and Kamel 2008 ). Here, we propose that adult foraging behavior of Coelioxys might also mirror that of its host, possibly aiding these bees to identify nesting hosts. Bee communities also differed significantly between native and exotic plant hosts. In addition to differences in species composition, where exotic bees were more common in exotic hosts and oligolectic and solitary polylectic bees were more common in native hosts, we also documented a higher species richness on some native plants, particularly Dalea coerulea and Bidens andicola. These data are consistent with previous, shorter studies conducted in the region and across the Ecuadorian Andes, which were based on citizen science databases (Padron 2025 ). During our monitoring we noted that some bee species that were rare visitors of the plants we selected, were conspicuous around other plant species. These plants, like Solanum nigrescens M.Martens & Galeotti and Monnina salicifolia were part of the floral neighborhood of the Bicentenario park, and might explain the rare visits of bee species like Exomalopsis bruesi Cockerell, 1914 . Future studies should expand the list of plant species monitored to include a broader representation of both native and non-native flora of the Andean cities, as well as other pollinator groups, like lepidopterans and hummingbirds. Our results showed that native bees in Quito show preference towards native plants (Fig. 7 ) with both bee abundance and species richness being higher at native host plants. Similar patterns have been reported in other bioregions. Pardee and Philpott ( 2014 ), for example, compared paired native and exotic gardens and found that native bee abundance was higher at gardens with native plants. However, bee richness was only higher in native gardens for cavity-nesting species, while the richness of other bee groups depended on the gardens' spatial characteristics. Pawelek et al. ( 2017 ) reached the same conclusion by replacing the exotic ornamentals and crops from a local community garden with native, mostly unmanaged vegetation, this resulted in a significant increase in the local bee richness. Morandin and Kremen ( 2013 ) also noted how, in old, restored hedgerows, the richness and abundance of bee pollinators was greater on native plants. It should be noted how each of these studies had a different approach. Of these, Morandin and Kremen’s is the most similar to ours, although in their study the observer walked across a transect with different plants, whereas we remained stationary in front of measured plots corresponding to individual species. In contrast to this study, Seitz et al. ( 2020 ) found a higher abundance and bee richness on exotic pollinator crops during early flowering season. We believe that these results might be caused by the little time the plant communities have been established, as seeds were planted the same year the experiments were conducted for both 2016 and 2017 repetitions. Our study, as well as the studies cited in the previous paragraph, used plant communities that have been established for over three years, with the native parcels at the Bicentenario Park having been planted in 2015. It is also possible that, while bee communities of Maryland, USA, do visit exotic hosts more frequently, the same is not true for the bee communities of SoAm, or at least the high Andean region. We believe this to be the case as both studies included similar plant genera and families, including T. repens , which received high visitation rates in Seitz’s study while in ours it did not. Although both citizen science and direct observation data showed that bees preferred native host plants (Fig. 3 , Fig. 6 ) the degree of these preferences varied significantly, we theorize that, while citizen science data showcases accurately the richness of interactions between bees and flowering plants, it currently doesn’t reflect the frequency of each interaction with as much accuracy as observational or netting data obtained by field scientists. The possible limitations of citizen science efforts has been discussed previously by Turley et al. ( 2024 ) who found that these surveys documented only half the species richness as traditional collections, while they also often had a strong bias towards larger, more conspicuous bees, like Bombus or Xylocopa , while small bees are underrepresented. This might also be true for Quito, as both genera of large bees are better represented than the smaller-sized genera in the families Halictidae, Megachilidae and Colletidae, even though our observations conducted at park Bicentenario showed smaller bees to be much more abundant (Table 3 ). We believe that this knowledge should be applied in future landscaping choices inside Quito, both in parks and in gardens. That does not mean that ornamental, exotic flowers should be completely avoided, as most oligolectic bees are capable of foraging from them, albeit, to a lesser extent than their preferred host plants. We have identified the most visited plants, both in terms of richness and abundance, and we think that these species should get special attention in local nurseries with the intent on providing local parks, sidewalks and gardens with plants that contribute to the maintenance of the local ecosystem services. These plants, Dalea coerulea, Bidens andicola and Lupinus pubescens , should be included in future pollinator gardens implemented throughout the city, including the corridors that are formed with the various metropolitan parks and that allow the larger native coverage remnants to connect between each other. We suggest maintaining regular, observational and photographic monitoring at park Bicentenario, as a reference for bee communities’ health in the northern part of the city, and to extend the scope of this study by conducting similar monitoring inside the metropolitan parks of both the central and southern parts of the city where fewer and smaller parks could cause differences in the behavior and diversity of the bees when compared to those on the northern parishes of the city. Furthermore, future studies should aim to take into account color preference and flower availability inside more diverse floral neighborhoods, as well as to elaborate a more comprehensive, molecular data driven, list of the bees of the DMQ and other understudied areas of the High Andes. Declarations Author information Orcid IDs Esteban Poveda-Proaño − 0009-0002-4963-1033 Raul Ontaneda-Gallegos − 0009-0005-5843-7656 Emilia A Moreno-Coellar − 0000-0002-7865-4093 Álvaro Barragan − 0000-0001-6843-2975 Ethics declarations The authors declare no competing interests. No endangered species were collected, collections and monitoring were conducted according to the protocols of the Museo QCAZ’s invertebrate section. Funding This article did not receive specific funding and was carried out independently by the Museo QCAZ Invertebrados, CIBIO Centro de investigaciones de la Biodiversidad, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE), Quito, Ecuador. Author Contribution E.P and A.B proposed the mothodology and study site. E.P did the field work (monitoring), E.P and R.O reviewed the museum data and were in charge of bee indentification, E.P and R.O wrote the main manuscript. E.M created the interaction networks (figures 3 and 6-9), E.M and E.P conducted the statystical analysis. R.O prepared figures 1-2. All autors reviewed the manuscript. Acknowledgements This research was conducted under Research Permit No. MAATE-DBI-CM-2024-0440, issued to the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE). Data Availability Data obtained from the field monitoring conducted at the Bicentenario park is included in the supplementary materials, photographs taken during the monitoring have bee uploaded to iNaturalist under CC licensing. Aditional data can be requested to the autors. References Ahrné K, Bengtsson J, Elmqvist T (2009) Bumble Bees (Bombus spp) along a Gradient of Increasing Urbanization. PLOS ONE 4(5):e5574. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005574 Aizen MA, Smith-Ramírez C, Morales CL, Vieli L, Sáez A, Barahona-Segovia RM, Arbetman MP, Montalva J, Garibaldi LA, Inouye DW, Harder LD (2019) Coordinated species importation policies are needed to reduce serious invasions globally: The case of alien bumblebees in South America. Journal of Applied Ecology 56(1):100–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13121 Akahira Y, Beig D (1967) Comparative study of Corpora alata in brazilian stingless bees. Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia 20(1-21 (1967)):165–190. https://doi.org/10.11606/0031-1049.1967.20p165-190 Aram F, García EH, Solgi E, Mansournia S (2019) Urban green space cooling effect in cities. Heliyon 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01339 Bates AJ, Sadler JP, Fairbrass AJ, Falk SJ, Hale JD, Matthews TJ (2011) Changing bee and hoverfly pollinator assemblages along an urban-rural gradient. PLoS One 6(8):e23459. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023459 Bertoni A, Schrottky C (1910) Beitrag zur Kenntnis der mit tetralonia verwandten Bienen aus Sudamerika. Zoologische Jahrbücher 29(5):563–598 Cameron P (1903) Descriptions of New Species of Hymenoptera Taken by Mr. Edward Whymper on the “Higher Andes of the Equator.” Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1890-) 29(3):225–238 Celis CJ, Aguilar-Benavides ML, Cure JR (2023) Behavior and nest architecture of the bee Caenohalictus alexandrei (Hymenoptera, Halictinae). Pap Avulsos Zool 63:e202363002. https://doi.org/10.11606/1807-0205/2023.63.002 Chiappa E, Rojas M, Toro H (1990) Key For the Bee Genera of Chile Hymenoptera Apoidea. Rev Chilena Ent 18:67–81 Chiesura A (2004) The role of urban parks for the sustainable city. Landscape and Urban Planning 68(1):129–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2003.08.003 Cockerell T (1907) Some Bees in the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy, Harvard University. University of Colorado Studies 5(1):35–39 Cockerell T (1900) Descriptions of New Bees Collected by Mr. H. H. Smith in Brazil— I. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 52:356–377 Cockerell TDA (1914) Bees from Ecuador and Peru. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 22(4):306–328 Cockerell TDA (1913) XV.—Descriptions and records of bees.—LIII. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 12(67):103–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222931308693377 Crawford J (1901) North American Bees of the Genus Agapostemon Guerin. Proceedings of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences 7:156–165 Dalmazzo M, Vossler FG (2015) Pollen host selection by a broadly polylectic halictid bee in relation to resource availability. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 9(3):253–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-015-9364-1 Dorey JB, Gilpin A-M, Johnston NP, Esquerré D, Hughes AC, Ascher JS, Orr MC (2026) Estimating global bee species richness and taxonomic gaps. Nat Commun 17(1):1762. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69029-4 Eickwort GC, Eickwort GC (1969) A comparative morphological study and generic revision of the augochlorine bees (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). The University of Kansas science bulletin 48(13):325--524. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.11227 Engel MS (2000) Classification of the bee tribe Augochlorini (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). amnb 2000(250):1–89. https://doi.org/10.1206/0003-0090(2000)250%253C0001:COTBTA%253E2.0.CO;2 EPMMOP (2024) Parque Bicentenario – EPMMOP. In: Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Movilidad y Obras Públicas. https://www.epmmop.gob.ec/parques/parque-bicentenario/. Accessed 29 Sept 2025 Ferrari A, Polidori C (2022) How city traits affect taxonomic and functional diversity of urban wild bee communities: insights from a worldwide analysis. Apidologie 53(4):46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-022-00950-5 Ferrari RR (2017) Taxonomic revision of the species of Colletes Latreille, 1802 (Hymenoptera: Colletidae: Colletinae) found in Chile. Zootaxa 4364(1):1–137. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4364.1.1 Ferrari RR, Buschini MLT, Diniz MER, Zhu C-D, Melo GAR (2022) Discovery of Mourecotelles (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Colletinae) in Brazil: nesting biology and pollen preferences of a remarkable new species of the genus. Journal of Hymenoptera Research 89:211–231. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.89.77485 Figueroa JA, Castro SA, Reyes M, Teillier S (2018) Urban park area and age determine the richness of native and exotic plants in parks of a Latin American city: Santiago as a case study. Urban Ecosyst 21(4):645–655. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0743-0 Filho LC da R, Araujo TN, Melo AL de S e C, Ferreira TD, Augusto SC (2023) A picky generalist: nesting females of Pseudaugochlora graminea (Halictidae) are highly specialised in an urban area Fogel NS, Shutterbee Participants, Camilo GR, Miller-Struttmann NE (2025) Can photography capture bee diversity? Evidence from professional and participatory scientists. Biodivers Conserv 34(8):2957–2976. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-025-03105-x Fontúrbel FE, Murúa MM, Vieli L (2021) Invasion dynamics of the European bumblebee Bombus terrestris in the southern part of South America. Sci Rep 11(1):15306. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94898-8 Frankie GW, Thorp R, Hernandez J, Rizzardi M, Ertter B, Pawelek JC, Witt SL, Schindler M, Coville R, Wojcik V (2009) Native bees are a rich natural resource in urban California gardens. California Agriculture 63(3) Frankie GW, Thorp RW, Schindler M, Hernandez J, Ertter B, Rizzardi M (2005) Ecological Patterns of Bees and Their Host Ornamental Flowers in Two Northern California Cities. kent 78(3):227–246. https://doi.org/10.2317/0407.08.1 Freitas BM, Imperatriz-Fonseca VL, Medina LM, Kleinert A de MP, Galetto L, Nates-Parra G, Quezada-Euán JJG (2009) Diversity, threats and conservation of native bees in the Neotropics. Apidologie 40(3):332–346. https://doi.org/10.1051/apido/2009012 Friese H (1900) Monographie der Bienengattung Centris (s.lat.). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 15(3/4):237–350 Friese H (1899) Monographie der Bienengattungen Megacilissa, Caupolicana und Oxaea. (Nachtrag zum I. Theil). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 14(3/4):239–246 Geslin B, Morales CL (2015) New records reveal rapid geographic expansion of Bombus terrestris Linnaeus, 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae), an invasive species in Argentina. Check List 11(3):1620–1620. https://doi.org/10.15560/11.3.1620 Gonçalves RB (2021) A revised genus-level classification for the Neotropical groups of the cleptoparasitic bee tribe Sphecodini Schenck (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Halictinae) Gonzalez VH, Michener CD (2004) A New Chilicola Spinola from Colombian Páramo (Hymenoptera: Colletidae: Xeromelissinae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 13:24–30 Hausmann SL, Petermann JS, Rolff J (2016) Wild bees as pollinators of city trees. Insect Conservation and Diversity 9(2):97–107. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12145 Ileana H, Vargas A, Rizzo K, Aguirre Z, Dillon I, Espinoza B, Espinoza F, Espinoza A, Ferrer-Paris J, Freire E, Gómez C, Gutierrez D, Lozano V, Moscoso-Estrella A, Oleas N, Panchana O, Pardo S, Romoleroux K, Sandoya V, Ulloa-Ulloa C, Vieira I, López-Pujol J (2025) Compiling and analyzing the non-native flora of a megadiverse Neotropical country: a new catalogue for continental Ecuador. 100:155–189. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.100.147213 Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (2022) Distrito metropolitano de Quito. In: Censo Ecuador cuenta conmigo. https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNWUzMjQwOWMtZjFhOS00NjczLTk0YTItNjcwZmRmY2YxMjkyIiwidCI6ImYxNThhMmU4LWNhZWMtNDQwNi1iMGFiLWY1ZTI1OWJkYTExMiJ9 Islam A, Pattnaik N, Moula MdM, Rötzer T, Pauleit S, Rahman MA (2024) Impact of urban green spaces on air quality: A study of PM10 reduction across diverse climates. Science of The Total Environment 955:176770. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176770 Klein A, Steffan–Dewenter I, Tscharntke T (2003) Fruit set of highland coffee increases with the diversity of pollinating bees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences 270(1518):955–961. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2306 Kowarik I (2011) Novel urban ecosystems, biodiversity, and conservation. Environmental Pollution 159(8):1974–1983. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2011.02.022 Kremen C, Williams NM, Bugg RL, Fay JP, Thorp RW (2004) The area requirements of an ecosystem service: crop pollination by native bee communities in California. Ecology Letters 7(11):1109–1119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00662.x Li X, Wiens JJ (2023) Estimating Global Biodiversity: The Role of Cryptic Insect Species. Syst Biol 72(2):391–403. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syac069 Matteson KC, Ascher JS, Langellotto GA (2008) Bee Richness and Abundance in New York City Urban Gardens. Ann Entomol Soc Am 101(1):140–150. https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2008)101%255B140:BRAAIN%255D2.0.CO;2 Mazzeo NM, Torretta JP (2015) Wild bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) in an urban botanical garden in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment 50(3):182–193. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650521.2015.1093764 Melo GAR (2025) Colletine bees and the flowers of the polygalaceous genus Monnina. Acta Biológica Paranaense 54(1). https://doi.org/10.5380/abp.v54i1.96940 Mexia T, Vieira J, Príncipe A, Anjos A, Silva P, Lopes N, Freitas C, Santos-Reis M, Correia O, Branquinho C, Pinho P (2018) Ecosystem services: Urban parks under a magnifying glass. Environmental Research 160:469–478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2017.10.023 Michener CD (2007) The Bees of the World. JHU Press Mitchell TB (1930) A Contribution to the Knowledge of Neotropical Megachile with Descriptions of New Species (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1890-) 56(3):155–306 Morandin LA, Kremen C (2013) Bee Preference for Native versus Exotic Plants in Restored Agricultural Hedgerows. Restoration Ecology 21(1):26–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1526-100X.2012.00876.x Moreno-Coellar EA, García-Ruilova AB, Salazar-Buenaño F, Menéndez-Guerrero PA, Poveda-Proaño E, Barragán Á, Donoso DA (2025) Bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of Ecuador. 2025.10.15.682676 Moure J (2000) The species of the genus Eulaema Lepeletier, 1841 (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Euglossinae). Acta Biológica Paranaense 29. https://doi.org/10.5380/abpr.v29i0.582 Moure JS (1964) Two New Genera of Halictine Bees from the Araucanian Subregion of South America (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 37(4):265–275 Moure JS, Urban D (2002) Catálogo de Apoidea da região neotropical (Hymenoptera, Colletidae). III: colletini. Rev Bras Zool 19:1–30. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-81752002000100001 Nates-Parra G, Parra H A, Rodríguez A, Baquero P, Vélez D (2006) Abejas silvestres (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) en ecosistemas urbanos: Estudio en la ciudad de Bogotá y sus alrededores. Revista Colombiana de Entomología 32(1):77–84 Nicholls CI, Altieri MA (2013) Plant biodiversity enhances bees and other insect pollinators in agroecosystems. A review. Agron Sustain Dev 33(2):257–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-012-0092-y Nielsen AB, van den Bosch M, Maruthaveeran S, van den Bosch CK (2014) Species richness in urban parks and its drivers: A review of empirical evidence. Urban Ecosyst 17(1):305–327. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-013-0316-1 Orr MC, Hughes AC, Chesters D, Pickering J, Zhu C-D, Ascher JS (2021) Global Patterns and Drivers of Bee Distribution. Current Biology 31(3):451-458.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.053 Orr MC, Hung K-LJ, Wilson-Rankin EE, Simpson PM, Yanega D, Kim AY, Ascher JS (2023) Scientific note: First mainland records of an unusual island bee (Anthophora urbana clementina) highlight the value of community science for adventive species detection and monitoring. Apidologie 54(5):46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-023-01025-9 Packer L (2021) Two new species of Andinopanurgus (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae: Panurginae), with a description of the female of A. amyae. Journal of Melittology (101):1–19. https://doi.org/10.17161/jom.i101.13338 Padron S (2025) Supporting insect pollinators in Ecuador: visitation interactions to the native Andean plant Dalea coerulea (L.f.) Schinz & Thell (Fabales: Fabaceae). REVISTA CHILENA DE ENTOMOLOGÍA 51:553–565. https://doi.org/10.35249/rche.51.4.25.05 Pardee GL, Philpott SM (2014) Native plants are the bee’s knees: local and landscape predictors of bee richness and abundance in backyard gardens. Urban Ecosyst 17(3):641–659. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-014-0349-0 Pawelek J, Gordon F, Robbin T, Maggie P (2017) Urban Horticulture: Ecology, Landscape, and Agriculture. CRC Press Peng M-H, Hung Y-C, Liu K-L, Neoh K-B (2020) Landscape configuration and habitat complexity shape arthropod assemblage in urban parks. Sci Rep 10(1):16043. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73121-0 Philpott SM, Lucatero A, Andrade S, Hernandez C, Bichier P (2023) Promoting Beneficial Arthropods in Urban Agroecosystems: Focus on Flowers, Maybe Not Native Plants. Insects 14(7):576. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14070576 Potts SG, Biesmeijer JC, Kremen C, Neumann P, Schweiger O, Kunin WE (2010) Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25(6):345–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2010.01.007 Poveda-Proaño E (2024) Revisión de la diversidad de Anthophila y su relación con la composición vegetal en entornos urbanos dentro de Quito-Ecuador. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador Prendergast KS, Dixon KW, Bateman PW (2022) A global review of determinants of native bee assemblages in urbanised landscapes. Insect Conservation and Diversity 15(4):385–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12569 Roberts R (1969) Biology of the Bee Genus Agapostemon (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). The University of Kansas Science Bulletin 48(16):689–719 Roig Alsina A (2009) A revision of the bee genus Nomada in Argentina (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Nomadinae). MACN 11:221–241. https://doi.org/10.22179/REVMACN.11.262 Rojas-Nossa SV, Sánchez JM, Navarro L (2016) Nectar robbing: a common phenomenon mainly determined by accessibility constraints, nectar volume and density of energy rewards. Oikos 125(7):1044–1055. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.02685 Royal Botanical Gardens (2025) Plants of the World Online | Kew Science. In: Plants of the World Online. https://powo.science.kew.org/. Accessed 1 Dec 2025 Rozen JG, Kamel SM (2008) Hospicidal Behavior of the Cleptoparasitic Bee Coelioxys (Allocoelioxys) coturnix, Including Descriptions of Its Larval Instars (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). novi 2008(3636):1–15. https://doi.org/10.1206/619.1 Schwarz HF (1943) Bees of the genus Anthidium from Peru. American Museum novitates, no 1242 Scott VL, Kelley ST, Strickler K (2000) Reproductive Biology of Two Coelioxys Cleptoparasites in Relation to Their Megachile Hosts (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). Ann Entomol Soc Am 93(4):941–948. https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2000)093%255B0941:RBOTCC%255D2.0.CO;2 Seitz N, vanEngelsdorp D, Leonhardt SD (2020) Are native and non-native pollinator friendly plants equally valuable for native wild bee communities? Ecology and Evolution 10(23):12838–12850. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6826 Silveira FA, Melo GAR, Almeida EAB (2002) Abelhas brasileiras: sistemática e identificação, 1. ed. Silveira, Belo Horizonte Tepedino VJ, Portman ZM (2021) Intensive monitoring for bees in North America: indispensable or improvident? Insect Conservation and Diversity 14(5):535–542. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12509 Thapa RB (2006) Honeybees and other Insect Pollinators of Cultivated Plants: A Review. Journal of the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science 27:1–23. https://doi.org/10.3126/jiaas.v27i0.691 Tommasi D, Miro A, Higo HA, Winston ML (2004) Bee diversity and abundance in an urban setting. The Canadian Entomologist 136(6):851–869. https://doi.org/10.4039/n04-010 Turley NE, Kania SE, Petitta IR, Otruba EA, Biddinger DJ, Butzler TM, Sesler VV, López-Uribe MM (2024) Bee monitoring by community scientists: comparing a collections-based program with iNaturalist. Ann Entomol Soc Am 117(4):220–233. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesa/saae014 Villamizar G, Fernández F, Vivallo F (2020) Synopsis of the carpenter bee subgenus Xylocopa (Schonnherria) Lepeletier, 1841 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Colombia, with designation of lectotypes and the description of two new species. Zootaxa 4789(2):301–347. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4789.2.1 Wilson JS, Pan AD, General DEM, Koch JB (2020) More eyes on the prize: an observation of a very rare, threatened species of Philippine Bumble bee, Bombus irisanensis, on iNaturalist and the importance of citizen science in conservation biology. J Insect Conserv 24(4):727–729. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-020-00233-3 Wilson JS, Wilson TM, Packer C, Pacheco O (2025) A Preliminary, Photography-Based Assessment of Bee Diversity at the Finca Botánica Organic Farm in the Central Pacific Coast of Ecuador. Conservation 5(4):57. https://doi.org/10.3390/conservation5040057 World Meteorological Organization (2013) World Weather Information Service. In: World Weather Information Service-Quito. https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/. Accessed 28 Feb 2026 Tables Tables 1 to 4 are available in the Supplementary Files section. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SUPPLEMENTARY1.xlsx Tables.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 18 May, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 17 May, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 05 May, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 23 Apr, 2026 First submitted to journal 22 Apr, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9246974","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":636330282,"identity":"451eb246-e9a1-4039-a192-a4d5d15c8fff","order_by":0,"name":"Esteban Poveda-Proaño","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA5UlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYFCCBBDBzMAP5TI2EK1FsoFkLQYHiNXCz5578DFPhbW88e0eww8fGGxkNxxgPvgBnxbJnnfJxjxn0g233TljLDmDIc14wwG2ZAl8Wgxu5JhJzmw7zLgNyGDmYTicuOEAjxleh9mDtfw7bL95BlDLH4b/QC383/BqMZDIMZP42AA0HMhgZmA4ALKFDa8WiTPvkg0+HEtPnnHnWLFkj0Gy8czDbMZ4/cLfnnvwQUKNtW3/7OaNH35U2Mn2HW9+iDfEGBh4YPaB3ckAiiNCAEXLKBgFo2AUjAIsAAAE4UtEmMtuVQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Esteban","middleName":"","lastName":"Poveda-Proaño","suffix":""},{"id":636330283,"identity":"05ff95c5-ff64-419d-9509-6f03e50998a6","order_by":1,"name":"Emilia Moreno-Coellar","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Buenos Aires","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Emilia","middleName":"","lastName":"Moreno-Coellar","suffix":""},{"id":636330284,"identity":"b7a6d93e-0676-4536-947d-68ba7f451e17","order_by":2,"name":"Raul Ontaneda -Gallegos","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Raul","middleName":"Ontaneda","lastName":"-Gallegos","suffix":""},{"id":636330285,"identity":"0ec7a283-95cb-4653-8f8d-715f3daf8c77","order_by":3,"name":"Álvaro Barragan","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Álvaro","middleName":"","lastName":"Barragan","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-27 16:41:12","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9246974/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9246974/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":109290410,"identity":"fec85435-41b0-4ce2-a657-dbf1a5e125f2","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 07:02:24","extension":"jpg","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":118902,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eStudy area. The left panel shows the location of Bicentenario Metropolitan Park (red) within the urban extent of Quito (gray), with urban parishes of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ) delineated by dark boundaries. The right panel shows the sampling points within Bicentenario Metropolitan Park and the monitored plant species, ordered from top to bottom as follows: (5) \u003cem\u003eTrifolium repens \u003c/em\u003e(exotic), (1) \u003cem\u003eBidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e(native), (6) \u003cem\u003eHypochaeris radicata\u003c/em\u003e (exotic), (4) \u003cem\u003eSalvia pauciserrata \u003c/em\u003e(native), (2) \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea\u003c/em\u003e (native), and (3) \u003cem\u003eLupinus pubescens\u003c/em\u003e (native).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/01a2c61b6106f1cf188151b1.jpg"},{"id":109296916,"identity":"268fa192-ba10-4791-8793-ac889a8a8a7b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 08:52:09","extension":"jpg","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":190488,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eHeat map showing bee abundance inside the urban parishes inside the DMQ. The parishes of Iñaquito and Jipijapa (in yellow) host the highest bee abundance, whereas the parishes in blue show the least, grey areas on the map had no bee observations recorded on iNaturalist.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/182019032cf066d042b8d039.jpg"},{"id":109290413,"identity":"ac36218c-ab85-43a2-be64-3fd0de45a631","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 07:02:24","extension":"jpg","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":139017,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eNetwork showing the interactions between native bee species and plant species found inside the urban parishes of the DMQ, obtained by curated iNaturalist data, created using the bipartite package (Dormann et al., 2014) in R (v.4.4). This network shows the number of links each species has but not the preference bee species may have as abundance data can not be inferred from iNaturalist observations in this area.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"3.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/66b3e4d97678addd385fdeba.jpg"},{"id":109296912,"identity":"9c08c384-71d1-4b83-9b25-d83b15ceaa47","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 08:52:06","extension":"jpg","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":122884,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eLine graphs showing the correlation between \u003cstrong\u003eA. \u003c/strong\u003ebee richness and native plant abundance, \u003cstrong\u003eB. \u003c/strong\u003ebee richness and exotic plant abundance, \u003cstrong\u003eC. \u003c/strong\u003ebee richness and native plant richness, and \u003cstrong\u003eD. \u003c/strong\u003ebee richness and exotic plant richness. All values are relative to parish area, in figures \u003cstrong\u003eA \u003c/strong\u003eand \u003cstrong\u003eB \u003c/strong\u003ebee richness is multiplied by ten for better visualization.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"4.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/6b71e2b0db5dc7c30af3280f.jpg"},{"id":109290417,"identity":"f4a7725d-1ae8-4580-b9d4-bb040e79d529","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 07:02:24","extension":"jpg","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":206575,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003ePhotographs of the bee-plant interactions occurring inside the Bicentenario park. \u003cstrong\u003eA.\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eMegachile antisanellae \u003c/em\u003e(bee) and \u003cem\u003eLupinus pubescens \u003c/em\u003e(plant) \u003cstrong\u003eB. \u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eNeocorynura micheneri \u003c/em\u003e(bee) and \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea \u003c/em\u003e(plant) \u003cstrong\u003eC. \u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eCoelioxys \u003c/em\u003esp. (bee) and \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea \u003c/em\u003e(plant) \u003cstrong\u003eD. \u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eXylocopa viridigastra \u003c/em\u003e(bee) and \u003cem\u003eSalvia pauciserrata \u003c/em\u003e(plant) \u003cstrong\u003eE. \u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eCaenohalictus \u003c/em\u003esp. (bee) and \u003cem\u003eTrifolium repens \u003c/em\u003e(plant) \u003cstrong\u003eF. \u003c/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003eBombus robustus \u003c/em\u003e(bee) and \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea. \u003c/em\u003eTwo additional species (\u003cem\u003eMonnina salicifolia\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSalvia microphylla\u003c/em\u003e) were monitored but excluded from the analysis due to insufficient flowering.\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003e(All interactions were photographed by Esteban Poveda and uploaded to the iNaturalist project https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/bee-plant-interaction-bicentenario-park-monitorings?).\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"5.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/f2c5724fabfecd647a78e3bc.jpg"},{"id":109290415,"identity":"2d66bd76-4bbd-40c1-97ab-cbfd7781d5fc","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 07:02:24","extension":"jpg","order_by":6,"title":"Figure 6","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":106569,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eInteraction network between the six monitored plant species (native and exotic) inside the Bicentenario park and the bee species they interacted with, created using the bipartite package (Dormann et al., 2014) in R (v.4.4). This network shows the preference bee species have towards different food sources, width of the links indicates a higher recorded frequency of the interactions.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"6.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/d1350cbbbfe56b8f29b81320.jpg"},{"id":109297854,"identity":"c9efd4c3-8df3-4526-ac74-d95d2d64954e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 09:06:51","extension":"jpg","order_by":7,"title":"Figure 7","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":74836,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eInteraction network between the monitored plant species inside the Bicentenario park, classified as native or exotic, and the bee species they interacted with, created using the bipartite package (Dormann et al., 2014) in R (v.4.4). This network shows the preference bee species have towards different food sources, width of the links indicates a higher recorded frequency of the interactions.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"7.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/38e891c2f225210da74ea4d5.jpg"},{"id":109296387,"identity":"d5dbbdff-606c-4047-9ee6-9ad479d69545","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 08:46:46","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":855416,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/9b41cad0-85da-465f-960e-e331f8669d2e.pdf"},{"id":109296465,"identity":"f5b716e8-5a98-41dc-93c3-6e77fd64c6b4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 08:47:10","extension":"xlsx","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":17992,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SUPPLEMENTARY1.xlsx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/a7785c51259924cf1a7d8b55.xlsx"},{"id":109290411,"identity":"b545d2d2-fe2c-48e9-a8ec-93c96da61977","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-15 07:02:24","extension":"docx","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":462887,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Tables.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9246974/v1/36aeda294f28d72034f73381.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Ecology of Urban Bees: Preference for Native Plants in the Green Spaces of Quito","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eTraditionally, urban ecosystems have been associated with low biodiversity. However, studies conducted over the last decade have demonstrated that, depending on habitat quality, cities can be home to a diverse array of insect pollinators such as bees and may even have higher native plant diversity than surrounding rural landscapes (Bates et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Kowarik \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e). Moreover, although often overlooked, urban ecosystems provide their inhabitants with various ecosystem services dependent on their species\u0026rsquo; richness and abundance. These services include cooling effects, crop pollination and air quality improvement, all of which are in turn determined by the size of urban green spaces (Kremen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Aram et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Islam et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAlong with native plant coverage remnants, parks are the largest green spaces within cities. Their high accessibility allows city inhabitants to interact with nature without leaving the urban landscape. These experiences enrich the city-dwellers\u0026rsquo; lifestyle and fulfill important psychological needs (Chiesura \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e). In urban ecosystems, parks are where biodiversity often reaches its peak (Nielsen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e), although this depends on the park\u0026rsquo;s size and landscape configuration. Even when comparing parks of similar size and proximity to forest remnants, other factors play a key role in understanding the composition of ground dwelling invertebrates such as the density of surrounding manmade structures and ground features (Peng et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, its possible that these characteristics also determine the diversity of pollinators, such as ground-nesting bees. Additionally, vegetation composition within a park also affects the quality of services provided along with the diversity associated with said services. More homogenous parks tend to have lower species richness while heterogeneous green spaces, particularly mixed forests, host richer communities, providing higher quality ecosystem services (Nielsen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Mexia et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFlora and its pollinators are two key components of both natural and urban ecosystems. While both groups are often studied independently inside urban ecosystems, research that encompasses both flora and fauna in a multidisciplinary, multi-species approach is rare but necessary to better understand biodiversity patterns in parks and other urban green spaces (Nielsen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Among pollinators, bees (Anthophila) are exceptional, as they are responsible for approximately 80% of the insect-driven pollination as well as the pollination of more than 60% of the world\u0026rsquo;s crops (Kremen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Thapa \u003cspan citationid=\"CR79\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e). Consequently, a significant decline in bee diversity could cause the setting rates of various crops to drop (Klein et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e). Even within cities, bees are often the most efficient pollinators available, though not necessarily the most abundant; this is especially true for native bees (Hausmann et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). A key unanswered question in plant-bee interactions is whether or not bees have a preference towards native plants. Current research suggests the answer is context-dependent, with studies supporting both hypotheses (Nicholls and Altieri \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Pardee and Philpott \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Philpott et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR65\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIncreasing urbanization and other changes in land use are worldwide threats to bee populations. While urban green spaces may be suitable for bees to inhabit, the surrounding urban infrastructure also determines the number of bee species that could be able to live in these environments (Ahrn\u0026eacute; et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Additionally, changes in the diversity and availability of floral resources also shape the pollinator communities of cities (Potts et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e). In South America (SoAm), another threat to bee conservation is the expansion of the agricultural and livestock frontier (Freitas et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e), as these areas often supply food to growing urban populations. Consequently, creating spaces that benefit the pollinators inside our cities has become both a need and a responsibility. Planting vegetation that benefits native bees can increase their abundance and richness, without sacrificing ornamental appeal (Frankie et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2005\u003c/span\u003e; Frankie et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Different bee species can have preferences towards different plant families, such as Asteraceae or Lamiaceae, preferred by bees from the families Halictidae and Apidae respectively (Frankie et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e). Because of this, understanding the preferences of the bee communities inside a city or wider biogeographic region is the first step toward achieving a successful habitat restoration.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUnderstanding the interactions between exotic and native species becomes more important in SoAm, where plant species\u0026rsquo; richness in urban parks appears to be higher for invasive plant species and lower for natives when compared to cities in North America, Europe or Asia (Nielsen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Figueroa et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). If bees in SoAm are shown to prefer native food sources, then urban parks should prioritize including a greater diversity of plant species that are preferred by local pollinators. The number of studies that describe the determinants of bee diversity and ensembles conducted in SoAm are about 4.5 times lower than those conducted in North America or Europe, with only a small number focused on high Andean cities (Prendergast et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR68\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this study, we describe the relationship between bee pollinators and their native and exotic plant hosts in the green spaces within the urban parishes of the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ for its Spanish acronym), Ecuador. We assessed bee and plant abundance and richness using records from scientific collections and the citizen science platform iNaturalist (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://ecuador.inaturalist.org/\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://ecuador.inaturalist.org/\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan type=\"Underline\" class=\"Underline\" name=\"Emphasis\"\u003e).\u003c/span\u003e We then carried out several field surveys in a city park, where we observed six species of plants and the pollinators that visited them, recording the number of flowers per plant, the ambient temperature and the overall richness of flowering plants at the time of each survey. We aimed to answer the following questions: 1) What is the diversity and spatial distribution of bee species and their plant associations across the urban green spaces of Quito? 2) Do native bee species show stronger preferences for native versus exotic flowering plants, and which plant species are most important for urban pollinators?\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Materials and Methods","content":"\n\u003ch3\u003e1. Study Design Overview\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe combined two complementary approaches operating at different spatial scales: (1) a city-wide analysis of bee occurrence and bee\u0026ndash;plant interaction data derived from museum collections and citizen science records across the DMQ, and (2) standardized field observations of bee visitation to selected native and exotic plant species within a single metropolitan park.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis dual-scale approach allowed us to evaluate general patterns of bee diversity and plant associations across the city while also directly quantifying visitation frequency, richness, and community composition under controlled field conditions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e2. City-Scale Patterns of Bee Diversity and Bee–Plant Interactions\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.1. Study Area\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe DMQ is the canton that contains Ecuador\u0026rsquo;s capital and its surrounding localities. It is located in the northern highlands of the country, as part of the Pichincha province, at a median altitude of 2 620 meters above sea level. The city is located across inter-volcanic valleys and is crossed by multiple small rivers that feed the Guayllabamba river basin. Quito has two seasons: a cold, wet season from October to May, and a warmer, dry season from June to September, with an average difference of only 0.9\u0026deg;C between the hottest and coldest months (15.3\u0026deg;C and 14.4\u0026deg;C respectively) (World Meteorological Organization \u003cspan citationid=\"CR85\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). The temperature is higher during the peak activity hours for bees, at around 17.5\u0026deg;C.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe DMQ is the second most populated city of Ecuador, with over 2 679 722 inhabitants and a high population density of approximately 4 735 residents per square kilometer (Instituto Nacional de Estad\u0026iacute;sticas y Censos \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Because of this, the DMQ is highly urbanized, and little of its original plant coverage remains, primarily as remnants surrounding rivers or within ravines. Despite this, the DMQ contains more than 1 355 parks and green areas, including 15 metropolitan parks that together cover approximately 1 960 ha. These parks form corridors that allow the movement of native flora and fauna across the city while also combining patches of exotic vegetation, such as eucalyptus forests, grasslands and lawns. The DMQ is administratively divided into urban, suburban and rural parishes. In this study, we focused on the 32 urban parishes (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.2. Data Collection\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo explore the bee diversity and its interactions with the urban flora we downloaded bee occurrence records within the DMQ, directly from iNaturalist (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://ecuador.inaturalist.org/\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://ecuador.inaturalist.org/\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e; only \u0026ldquo;research grade\u0026rdquo; records). We selected the observations to include only records from urban parishes, and then we curated them to either genus or species level by comparing the photographs with reference material from the Museum of Zoology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (QCAZ) and using regional identification keys and historical species lists (Cockerell \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1914\u003c/span\u003e; Mitchell \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1930\u003c/span\u003e; Michener \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Moreno-Coellar et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) which we used to construct a species list (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). All observations that featured bee-plant interactions were further curated to identify the associated plant species and family, with identifications validated in the PUCE QCA Herbarium. Additionally, we also downloaded data of occurrence via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF; \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://www.gbif.org/\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://www.gbif.org/\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e; only museum records) database.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.3. Selection of Focal Plant Families\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo identify the plant groups most relevant to urban bee diversity within the DMQ, the interaction records from the city-scale dataset were aggregated at the plant family level. Plant families whose data accounted for more than 10% of the total number of recorded interactions were retained for further analysis.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor each of these families, we downloaded all plant observations, curated them, and assigned an origin value (native or exotic) to each species using the Plants of the World Online database and the new catalogue for continental Ecuador exotic flora to assign the origin status to each species (Ileana et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Royal Botanical Gardens \u003cspan citationid=\"CR72\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.4. Distribution of Quito\u0026rsquo;s bees\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe uploaded the data to ArcGIS (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://www.arcgis.com\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://www.arcgis.com\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan type=\"Underline\" class=\"Underline\" name=\"Emphasis\"\u003e)\u003c/span\u003e where, using the coordinates available from some museum data and iNaturalist observations, we were able to determine the bee richness relative to area of each of the urban parishes; we also calculated the plant richness and abundance relative to area for all of the parishes.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eUsing this data, we determined which areas of the DMQ had the highest bee diversity relative to area and we also made four line graphs to visualize how the distribution of the bee species richness and the abundance and richness of plants correlated. Additionally, we created a visual heat map (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e) to identify the parishes that hosted the highest bee diversity.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e3. Field Assessment of Bee–Plant Interactions\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.1. Selection of Focal Plant Species\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo evaluate bee visitation to native and exotic plants under controlled field conditions, we selected flowering plant species based on their prominence in the city-scale bee\u0026ndash;plant interaction dataset. Plant species were chosen to represent the most frequently visited taxa by native bees. In total, eight plant species were selected for monitoring: five natives and three exotics. Native species included \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea\u003c/em\u003e (L.f.) Schinz \u0026amp; Thell., \u003cem\u003eLupinus pubescens\u003c/em\u003e Benth., \u003cem\u003eBidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e Kunth., and \u003cem\u003eMonnina salicifolia\u003c/em\u003e Ruiz \u0026amp; Pav., which showed a high number of interactions with native bees in the city-wide dataset. Exotic species included \u003cem\u003eHypochaeris radicata\u003c/em\u003e L. and \u003cem\u003eTrifolium repens\u003c/em\u003e L., selected as exotic counterparts to native species within the families Asteraceae and Fabaceae, respectively. In addition, \u003cem\u003eSalvia microphylla\u003c/em\u003e Kunth. was selected due to its high number of recorded interactions, and \u003cem\u003eSalvia pauciserrata\u003c/em\u003e Benth. was included as its native counterpart within Lamiaceae. In the event that any selected species failed to produce sufficient flowers during the sampling period, those species would be excluded from the interaction analysis but retained in the park survey effort.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.2. Field Study Site\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAll field surveys were conducted within Bicentenario Metropolitan Park, a large urban green area selected because it contains a combination of exotic and native vegetation and because it was the only metropolitan park that already included all eight plant species selected for study. The park covers 103 ha and is located on the site of the city's former airport. Several ecological restoration efforts have been implemented within the park, resulting in large areas of native vegetation composed primarily of trees but also some bushes and herbaceous plants. The park also has grass lawns, where exotic Asteraceae and Fabaceae are the predominant flowering species, as well as various trails and a sports track adapted from the former airplane runway (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e) (EPMMOP \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEach plant species was represented by two individual specimens within the park. All plants were located within approximately one hectare of one another, and a 1 m\u0026sup2; observation quadrant was established for each individual plant (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). We acknowledge that two individuals per species constitutes limited replication. This was constrained by the availability of naturally occurring specimens within the park, as Bicentenario was the only metropolitan park containing all selected species simultaneously, making it unfeasible to increase replication by sampling across multiple parks.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3. Observation and Collection Protocol\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe relied on direct observation, paired with monthly hand nettings, to monitor the bees inside the park. We conducted observations twice a week, from May to August, in order to determine which bee species were feeding on each flower. To achieve this, we observed quadrants of one square meter for ten minutes at a time. We annotated every bee and other pollinators that were actively feeding on the flowers, nectar robbing was also considered, as in the case of carpenter bees that would often pierce the flower's corollas to access their food (Rojas-Nossa et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR71\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). We identified the bees to genus level, or in the case it was possible, to species level, while non-bee pollinators were identified only to family level (\u003cb\u003eSupplementary 1\u003c/b\u003e). Since most insect pollinators are more active during warm, clear days, we only conducted our observations between 10 and 12:30 am, when the temperature was up to three degrees lower or higher than the average (17.5\u0026deg; \u0026plusmn; 3\u0026deg; C); we also canceled the observations on rainy days. Before starting each observation, we annotated the date, temperature and the number of inflorescences of the selected plant species inside the quadrant, each day we carried out observations on every plant species selected, in a randomized order. In case some of the plant species didn\u0026rsquo;t have any mature flowers, we annotated both the number of visits and the number of flowers as zero.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe used the hand netting to collect bee species that were difficult to identify by sight only, this included small halictids or colletids. We conducted the nettings once a month, on days where no direct observations were carried out, along with them, we also photographed bees and other pollinators to document their interactions. We compared the bees collected with the ones held at the invertebrate section of QCAZ and the National Institute of Biodiversity (INABIO) using taxonomic keys for each bee group (Friese \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1899\u003c/span\u003e; Cockerell \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1914\u003c/span\u003e; Moure \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1964\u003c/span\u003e; Silveira et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR77\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e; Gonzalez and Michener \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Roig Alsina \u003cspan citationid=\"CR70\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Ferrari \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Packer \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Moreno-Coellar et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e4. Bee–Plant Interactions\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo characterize patterns of interaction between bees and flowering plants in Quito, we constructed two sets of bipartite bee\u0026ndash;plant interaction networks. The first one used the citizen science dataset including plants from the eight most frequently visited plant families for the urban parishes of the DMQ, we built one network that showed the interactions between native bee morphospecies and plant species. Since the data we recovered can\u0026rsquo;t be used to accurately portray the preference bee species may have towards different food sources, this network only explores the diversity of interactions within the city. Because of this, we converted the data into a binary dataset, where 1 meant the interaction between a bee and a plant species had been recorded and 0 meant it had not.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor the second set of networks we used the dataset containing data from the six plant species monitored at the Bicentenario metropolitan park. We created three distinct networks. The first one showed the links between the bee species and the six plant species, the second showed the links between the bee species and the plants classified by their origin (native or exotic), and the third showed the links between the four bee families found at the Bicentenario park and the plants classified by their origin. The monitoring allowed us to accurately portray the abundance each bee species had at each of the six plant hosts, thus, the networks of this set show the preference bee species have towards different taxa.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor both sets of networks, each plant species was classified according to its geographical origin (endemic, native, or exotic) following the catalogues of J\u0026oslash;rgensen \u0026amp; Le\u0026oacute;n-Y\u0026aacute;nez (1999) and Herrera et al. (2025). We calculated the species degree (the number of interacting species from the opposite trophic level) for each network. All networks were constructed in R version 4.3.1 (R Core Team, 2023) using the bipartite package v2.18 (Dormann et al., 2008).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe networks presented here are intended as qualitative visualizations of interaction structure. No additional network-level metrics were calculated, as the primary statistical comparisons between native and exotic plant use were addressed through the PERMANOVA analyses described below.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e5. Statistical analysis\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe analyzed the interactions observed at Bicentenario park to test whether variation in bee abundance at native and exotic plants was greater within groups or between groups to assess the significance of the differences between the communities of bees that visited each group. We applied a Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance (PERMANOVA) using the 'vegan' package in R, with 10 000 permutations, based on Bray-Curtis dissimilarity calculated from square-root transformed bee abundance data, grouping the two exotic plants\u0026rsquo; data as group one and the four native plants\u0026rsquo; data as group two. We then repeated this analysis to test if the variation in bee abundance was greater among different host plant species than among different sampling events of the same plant species. Finally, to evaluate the similarity between the bee communities associated with each plant species, and the similarity in host plant use between bee species, we generated two projections of the bipartite networks using the \u0026lsquo;igraph\u0026rsquo; R package using the function bipartite_projection, creating two graphs labelled as proj1 for the similarities among plants and proj2 for the similarities among bees.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\n\u003ch3\u003e1. City-Scale Patterns of Bee Diversity and Bee–Plant Interactions\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe retrieved a total of 755 bee occurrence records between museum data from GBIF (130) and citizen science data from iNaturalist (625). All five bee families reported for Ecuador were also recorded within the city: Apidae, Megachilidae, Halictidae, Colletidae and Andrenidae. We registered a total of 31 morphospecies (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e), most of which belonged to Apidae (13) and Halictidae (7), Megachilidae (5) and Colletidae (5) tied for the second lowest species richness and Andrenidae had only one species. In terms of relative abundance, Apidae (72.58%) also had the highest number of collections and observations, followed by Megachilidae (11.52%), Halictidae (10.46%) and Colletidae (5.43%). The most frequently recorded species were \u003cem\u003eThygater aethiops\u003c/em\u003e (Smith, 1854) (17.09%), \u003cem\u003eXylocopa viridigastra\u003c/em\u003e Lepeletier, 1841 (14.97%) and \u003cem\u003eBombus robustus\u003c/em\u003e Smith, 1854 (13.38%).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOf the 625 iNaturalist observations, 333 showed native bees interacting with identifiable plant species. These interactions involved plants from 15 families of which the most frequently visited were Fabaceae (101), Lamiaceae (88) and Asteraceae (76). Fabaceae was important for Apidae and Megachilidae, 40.93% and 31.15% respectively of these bees\u0026rsquo; interactions were with this family. Lamiaceae was primarily visited by Apidae (40.41%). Asteraceae was most frequently visited by Halictidae (72.88%) and to a lesser extent Megachilidae (26.27%). Polygalaceae was the family Colletidae interacted with the most, with 75% of Colletidae interactions occurring with species of the genus \u003cem\u003eMonnina\u003c/em\u003e (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e, Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe bipartite network of the citizen science data set showed 132 types of interactions between 43 plant species and 20 bee species within the DMQ (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea\u003c/em\u003e was the plant that showed the highest number of links, interacting with 13 bee species, followed by \u003cem\u003eHypochaeris radicata\u003c/em\u003e (9) and \u003cem\u003eBidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e (7). On the other hand, the bee that showed the highest number of links was \u003cem\u003eMegachile\u003c/em\u003e sp. as this bee interacted with 20 plant species, followed by \u003cem\u003eT. aethiops\u003c/em\u003e (15), \u003cem\u003eAnthophora pillifrons\u003c/em\u003e Packard, 1869 (12), \u003cem\u003eB. funebris\u003c/em\u003e (11) and \u003cem\u003eX. viridigastra\u003c/em\u003e (11). Family Andrenidae was not included in the network as the sole representative of this family, \u003cem\u003eAndinopanurgus amyae\u003c/em\u003e (Gonzalez \u0026amp; Engel, 2011) had only one interaction record.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEight plant families were involved in 80% of the interactions with bees: Asteraceae, Fabaceae, Solanaceae, Lamiaceae, Rosaceae, Onagraceae, Polygalaceae, and Rutaceae.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMost of the reported bee richness came from large urban parks, making the parishes of I\u0026ntilde;aquito and Jipijapa the most rich in bee species (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e). Native plant richness was the best indicator for native bee richness as the line graphs showed that the native plant richness relative to area and native bee richness relative to area resembled each other the most (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAdditionally, we uploaded to iNaturalist all digital evidence of the interactions photographed while monitoring inside the Bicentenario Park, to provide evidence of the interactions occurring between plants and pollinators inside the city, these interactions include visits to plants that were not considered in the monitorings but were flowering between the quadrants (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e2. Field Assessment of Bee–Plant Interactions\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring field surveys, we registered 16 bee species (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e) interacting with the eight selected flowers within Bicentenario metropolitan park. An additional bee species, \u003cem\u003eThygater aethiops\u003c/em\u003e, was recorded within the park; however, it only fed on \u003cem\u003eSolanum nigrescens\u003c/em\u003e, a plant species not considered in this study. Of the 16 bee species recorded, only one was exotic, \u003cem\u003eApis mellifera\u003c/em\u003e Linnaeus, 1758, while all others were native to the area. Bees belonged to four families, with Apidae being the most diverse. We recorded 6 species from Apidae, 3 for Megachilidae, 4 for Halictidae, and 3 for Colletidae. Due to the difficulties in identifying free-flying bees, we decided to group both morphospecies of \u003cem\u003eMegachile\u003c/em\u003e Latreille, 1802, as well as both morphospecies of \u003cem\u003eColletes\u003c/em\u003e Latreille, 1802 (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \n\u003ch3\u003e3. Bee–Plant Interactions\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo of the initially selected species (\u003cem\u003eMonnina salicifolia\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSalvia microphylla\u003c/em\u003e) did not flower sufficiently during the sampling period and were excluded from the quantitative analysis, as established in the study design. All subsequent analyses are therefore based on the remaining six species. The network showed 554 interactions between 16 bee species and the six remaining plant species (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e, Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). Of these interactions, 420 (75.81%) were between bees and native plant species, the other 134 (24.19%) were between bees and exotic plants (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig7\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe plant species with the highest number of links was \u003cem\u003eD. coerulea\u003c/em\u003e, which received 283 visits from bee pollinators. The plant species with the lowest number of interactions were \u003cem\u003eS. pauciserrata\u003c/em\u003e (Lamiaceae, native) and \u003cem\u003eL. pubescens\u003c/em\u003e (Fabaceae, native) with 40 visits each. \u003cem\u003eD. coerulea\u003c/em\u003e (Fabaceae, native) also had the highest bee species richness (10 species), followed by \u003cem\u003eB. andicola\u003c/em\u003e (Asteraceae, native) with 8 species. (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe bee species with the highest number of links was \u003cem\u003eA. mellifera\u003c/em\u003e (Apidae), with a total of 139 recorded visits, mainly to exotic plant species (84.17%). \u003cem\u003eMegachile\u003c/em\u003e sp. (Megachilidae, native) held the second highest number of interactions at 132, all of which were with native species (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e). The rarest bee species were \u003cem\u003eCaupolicana niveofasciata\u003c/em\u003e Friese, 1898 (Colletidae, native), observed only once visiting the native \u003cem\u003eB. andicola\u003c/em\u003e, and an unidentified species of \u003cem\u003eExomalopsis\u003c/em\u003e Spinola, 1853 (Apidae, native), which was recorded once visiting the exotic \u003cem\u003eT. repens.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMost of the native bees recorded were ground-nesting solitary bees (gs) (60.48%), followed by ground-nesting eusocial bees (ge) (17.83%) and wood-nesting gregarious bees (wg) (15.42%). The abundant gs bees were mainly polylectic, visiting both native and exotic flowers of various families. ge bees, on the other hand, preferred native Fabaceae (\u003cem\u003eD. coerulea\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eL. pubescens\u003c/em\u003e), but when these plants had a low floral availability, they would also rob nectar from \u003cem\u003eS. pauciserrata\u003c/em\u003e. A similar pattern was observed for ws bees. Finally, cuckoo bees would feed on the same flowers as their hosts from the genus \u003cem\u003eMegachile\u003c/em\u003e (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). Four bee families interacted with the targeted plant species. Ranked from most to least abundant these were: Apidae (50.54%), Megachilidae (26.35%), Halictidae (21.29%) and Colletidae (1.81%). If we exclude \u003cem\u003eA. mellifera\u003c/em\u003e, Apidae represented only 33.97% of recorded bees. When excluding the exotic \u003cem\u003eA. mellifera\u003c/em\u003e, all four bee families showed preference for native flowers over exotic ones (\u003cb\u003eSupplementary 2\u003c/b\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e4. Statistical analysis\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnalysis of the citizen science dataset showed that bees interacted more often with native plants (54.65%) rather than with exotic plants (45.35%). These interactions varied among bee families. Colletidae and Megachilidae were more frequently observed to interact with native plants (85% and 68.85% respectively). Apidae also interacted more with native plants (52.33%), whereas Halictidae interacted more frequently with exotic plants (62.71%). The plant species with the highest number of interactions were \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea\u003c/em\u003e (17.12%), \u003cem\u003eSalvia microphylla\u003c/em\u003e (12.31%), \u003cem\u003eHypochaeris radicata\u003c/em\u003e (11.11%), \u003cem\u003eTrifolium pratense\u003c/em\u003e (6.91%), and \u003cem\u003eBidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e (5.11%). Overall, native plants interacted with a significantly higher abundance of bees than exotic plants did.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnalysis of the Bicentenario park monitoring showed that bees belonging to the family Apidae were largely polylectic, with only three species recorded visiting a single plant host, meanwhile, the other three families had considerably more oligolectic species. Megachilidae bees largely (p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1.67e-4) preferred native Fabaceae, with only one species also visiting \u003cem\u003eB. andicola\u003c/em\u003e. Contrary to what the network created with citizen science data (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e) suggested, Colletidae species were not strictly oligolectic and actually visited flowers from different families, such as Asteraceae and Fabaceae, although their strong preference towards native species was corroborated (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e, Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBee interactions with native and exotic plants were significantly different (PERMANOVA, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1e-5), with most interactions occurring with native plant species. Bee interactions with each plant species were significantly different (PERMANOVA, p\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1e-6).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eOur research demonstrates that museological and citizen science data can be used to explore the bee richness inside urban ecosystems, like the urban parishes of Quito. It has been proven that photographic surveys can provide abundance estimates similar to the ones obtained by hand nettings and can also provide realistic diversity estimates especially when conducted by researchers, while photographic surveys conducted by citizen scientists show some biases towards larger bees but an overall similarity to the results obtained by researchers (Fogel et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e); another study, conducted at Ecuador\u0026rsquo;s coastal region, provided an assessment of the bee richness inside an organic farm using live photography of lethargic bees who were later released into the wild (Wilson et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR84\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe believe that ecological data can be obtained via well standardized field observations and photography, aided but not reliant on citizen science data as a tool to obtain a general understanding of a broader area. On the other hand, taxonomic data is still dependent on collections, our field monitoring, as well as the Wilson et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR84\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) assessment could not identify bees to species level due to the limitations of direct observation and photography. Additionally, the high number of cryptic species found in invertebrates, estimated to be on average 3.1 cryptic species per described insect species, highlights the importance of molecular data when describing or identifying species (Li and Wiens \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCurrently iNaturalist includes a feature, that allows users to tag plant-pollinator interactions, with observation fields such as \u0026ldquo;Nectar plant\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Nectar/Pollen delivering plant\u0026rdquo;, which have the potential to facilitate exploratory analysis like the one conducted in this study. We recommend that features like this should be made accessible from the iNaturalist mobile app, as right now observation fields can only be added from the computer version of this platform, which might be one of the reasons this valuable function is underused. Although we only used research grade observations for our research, observations classified as \u0026ldquo;Needs ID\u0026rdquo; can hold useful information that\u0026rsquo;s often overlooked by researchers. In the case of the bees of the DMQ, insects belonging to the family Andrenidae have been observed inside the urban parishes, but because these bees were only curated to family level, we did not find them when filtering for research grade observations. Future studies should make the additional effort to review all observations available and not only those of research grade.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eiNaturalist, where the taxonomic certainty of its observations is limited by the quality of the photographic evidence uploaded, might be more suited to monitoring and describing the ecology of larger bees, as it has been proven that citizen science data might be far more efficient than traditional methods at recording presence data from either invasive or endangered large-bodied bees (Wilson et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR83\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Orr et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). In the context of SoAm, the quick identification of invasive species is key to protect the native pollinators and apps like iNaturalist might be the first to alert the scientific community of threats like the invasive \u003cem\u003eBombus terrestris\u003c/em\u003e (Linnaeus, 1758), whose range has been steadily increasing in the southern part of the continent (Geslin and Morales \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Aizen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Font\u0026uacute;rbel et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOverall, we believe that citizen science data can contribute with a wider lens to understanding the pollination ecology of urban ecosystems as it provides data from a broader area than most traditional monitorings could achieve, but its limitations to accurately portray the richness and abundance of native pollinators highlights the need for field monitoring conducted by researchers or by citizens under the supervision of trained staff.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe combined citizen science data with direct observations conducted inside a city park where we were able to describe the bee communities associated with six urban plant hosts that were part of a diverse floral neighborhood. We used a combination of direct observation, photography and nettings to document the bees present at metropolitan park Bicentenario, where we were able to identify 16 bee morphotypes. We conducted as few nettings as possible, trying to collect only a male and a female of each species for identification purposes only, as the local bee fauna remains largely undescribed or understudied. We believe that, in ecosystems with low bee abundance, it is best not to conduct large scale collections as they are likely to cause harm to the bee communities that are already threatened by habitat loss and their host plants\u0026rsquo; replacement with ornamental species. Tepedino and Portman (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR78\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) also suggest that continuous, large-scale monitoring may worsen the status of bee communities, causing them to decline faster; they also suggest that non-lethal monitoring can provide valuable data in species that are identifiable on the field. We extend this assertion to bees that can\u0026rsquo;t be identified to species level on the field but whose conservation status hasn\u0026rsquo;t been assessed, we believe that it is better to keep ecological data up to genus level, rather than risking the safety of bee populations with intensive collections.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe were able to identify most bees present at Quito and inside the Bicentenario park to species level by examining the museological specimens at the QCAZ invertebrate collection and the ones we netted at Bicentenario park. Contrastingly, most identifications done in the field and obtained from iNaturalist data were left on genus level, as many bee species can only be accurately identified when examined under a stereoscope.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe registered 31 different bee species inside the urban parishes of Quito. This equates to around 10% of the reported bee richness of Ecuador (305 species) and around 5% of the country\u0026rsquo;s estimated richness, which is situated at around 600 species (Freitas et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Dorey et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e). It should be noted that no bees belonging to the Andrenidae family are listed as part of the Ecuadorian bee diversity by Freitas et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e) but at least three Andrenidae bee species collected in Ecuador can be found in the QCAZ collections, which suggests that both the reported and the estimated richness can be higher inside the region.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBee richness inside the city of Quito is low when compared with other capitals and large cities of the Americas, across four studies from four different countries the lowest richness was found inside the capital of Colombia, Bogot\u0026aacute;, with 40 species; the highest richness was that of the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, with 66 species (Nates-Parra et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Mazzeo and Torretta \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Cities in North America are also home to a higher bee richness than that of Quito, with over 50 species in New York (United States of America) and Vancouver (Canada) (Tommasi et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR80\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Matteson et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e). The apparently low richness of Quito might be caused by a combination of poorly known bee diversity and the prevalence of exotic plants in urban green spaces.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt is possible that the high bee richness found inside of Quito, relative to the total richness of Ecuador, can be explained by the environment and ecosystem the city was built on top of. Globally, bee richness can be associated with low precipitation during the driest months as well as low seasonality, additionally, bees seem to be more diverse in non-forested ecosystems, such as deserts, bushlands or grasslands (Orr et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Dorey et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e), all of which are characteristics shared with the city of Quito.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBee communities differed significantly among plant species, most bees visited several species (polylecty), while three bee species were recorded on a single plant family or tribe (oligolecty). No bee species were determined to visit a single plant species (monolecty). The low number of oligolectic and monolectic species might be explained by the highly fragmented nature of urban green spaces, which, together with the extent of the city, have been associated with reduced diversity of specialist bees (Ferrari and Polidori \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Bees belonging to families Colletidae and Halictidae were the only ones to consistently show a preference towards one or few plant families.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBees belonging to the Colletidae family were shown to prefer plants from the families Polygalaceae and Fabaceae as their food sources. Plants belonging to the genus \u003cem\u003eMonnina\u003c/em\u003e (Polygalaceae) and \u003cem\u003eDalea\u003c/em\u003e (Fabaceae) were frequently associated with colletids from the genus \u003cem\u003eColletes\u003c/em\u003e as well as \u003cem\u003eCaupolicana niveofasciata\u003c/em\u003e Friese, 1898. Previous studies in the region have not described preferences between these genera, although \u003cem\u003eMonnina\u003c/em\u003e has previously been reported to interact with \u003cem\u003eColletes a\u003c/em\u003end \u003cem\u003eCaupolicana\u003c/em\u003e, albeit based on anecdotal observations only (Melo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). A bee from a related genus, \u003cem\u003eMourecolletes brasiliensis\u003c/em\u003e has been reported to have a strong preference towards Fabaceae and Polygalaceae, with these families summing up to 98.5% of the pollen grains found inside the nests of this species (Ferrari et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe found that bees belonging to the Halictidae family often exhibited a broad polylecty and interactions with several bee families were recorded. Despite this, our data also showed that halictids have a preference towards yellow flowers within the Asteraceae family, this preference was most noticeable amongst citizen science data. It\u0026rsquo;s possible that this apparent preference is mainly motivated by floral availability and proximity to the nesting sites of these bees as it has been reported by other authors (Roberts \u003cspan citationid=\"CR69\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1969\u003c/span\u003e; Celis et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). In some cases, like with \u003cem\u003eAgapostemon nasutus\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eLasioglossum\u003c/em\u003e sp. this preference might go beyond floral availability, as these bees rarely or never foraged on other abundant species and instead frequented the Asteraceae \u003cem\u003eBidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eHypochaeris radicata\u003c/em\u003e even when this species had a low floral availability. Other authors have also documented the preference that some halictids have towards rare plant species and have speculated that it might be explained by other factors like the fact that Asteraceae provides its pollinators with both pollen and nectar while other plant families only offer one of these two resources (Dalmazzo and Vossler \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Filho et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe cleptoparasite bees of the genus \u003cem\u003eCoelioxys\u003c/em\u003e also exhibited a preference towards a specific plant family, Fabaceae. At Park Bicentenario their foraging behavior mirrored that of their possible hosts, \u003cem\u003eMegachile\u003c/em\u003e antisanillae and \u003cem\u003eM. ecuadoria\u003c/em\u003e, all three species visited almost exclusively two native legumes (\u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea a\u003c/em\u003end \u003cem\u003eLupinus pubescens\u003c/em\u003e). Literature describing the foraging preferences of \u003cem\u003eCoelioxys\u003c/em\u003e adults is extremely scarce but the reproductive behavior and larval development of this genus have been reported to align closely with their host\u0026rsquo;s (Scott et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR75\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2000\u003c/span\u003e; Rozen and Kamel \u003cspan citationid=\"CR73\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e). Here, we propose that adult foraging behavior of \u003cem\u003eCoelioxys\u003c/em\u003e might also mirror that of its host, possibly aiding these bees to identify nesting hosts.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBee communities also differed significantly between native and exotic plant hosts. In addition to differences in species composition, where exotic bees were more common in exotic hosts and oligolectic and solitary polylectic bees were more common in native hosts, we also documented a higher species richness on some native plants, particularly \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eBidens andicola.\u003c/em\u003e These data are consistent with previous, shorter studies conducted in the region and across the Ecuadorian Andes, which were based on citizen science databases (Padron \u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDuring our monitoring we noted that some bee species that were rare visitors of the plants we selected, were conspicuous around other plant species. These plants, like \u003cem\u003eSolanum nigrescens\u003c/em\u003e M.Martens \u0026amp; Galeotti and \u003cem\u003eMonnina salicifolia\u003c/em\u003e were part of the floral neighborhood of the Bicentenario park, and might explain the rare visits of bee species like \u003cem\u003eExomalopsis bruesi\u003c/em\u003e Cockerell, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1914\u003c/span\u003e. Future studies should expand the list of plant species monitored to include a broader representation of both native and non-native flora of the Andean cities, as well as other pollinator groups, like lepidopterans and hummingbirds.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOur results showed that native bees in Quito show preference towards native plants (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig7\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e) with both bee abundance and species richness being higher at native host plants. Similar patterns have been reported in other bioregions. Pardee and Philpott (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e), for example, compared paired native and exotic gardens and found that native bee abundance was higher at gardens with native plants. However, bee richness was only higher in native gardens for cavity-nesting species, while the richness of other bee groups depended on the gardens' spatial characteristics. Pawelek et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) reached the same conclusion by replacing the exotic ornamentals and crops from a local community garden with native, mostly unmanaged vegetation, this resulted in a significant increase in the local bee richness. Morandin and Kremen (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e) also noted how, in old, restored hedgerows, the richness and abundance of bee pollinators was greater on native plants. It should be noted how each of these studies had a different approach. Of these, Morandin and Kremen\u0026rsquo;s is the most similar to ours, although in their study the observer walked across a transect with different plants, whereas we remained stationary in front of measured plots corresponding to individual species.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn contrast to this study, Seitz et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR76\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) found a higher abundance and bee richness on exotic pollinator crops during early flowering season. We believe that these results might be caused by the little time the plant communities have been established, as seeds were planted the same year the experiments were conducted for both 2016 and 2017 repetitions. Our study, as well as the studies cited in the previous paragraph, used plant communities that have been established for over three years, with the native parcels at the Bicentenario Park having been planted in 2015. It is also possible that, while bee communities of Maryland, USA, do visit exotic hosts more frequently, the same is not true for the bee communities of SoAm, or at least the high Andean region. We believe this to be the case as both studies included similar plant genera and families, including \u003cem\u003eT. repens\u003c/em\u003e, which received high visitation rates in Seitz\u0026rsquo;s study while in ours it did not.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAlthough both citizen science and direct observation data showed that bees preferred native host plants (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e, Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e) the degree of these preferences varied significantly, we theorize that, while citizen science data showcases accurately the richness of interactions between bees and flowering plants, it currently doesn\u0026rsquo;t reflect the frequency of each interaction with as much accuracy as observational or netting data obtained by field scientists. The possible limitations of citizen science efforts has been discussed previously by Turley et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR81\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e) who found that these surveys documented only half the species richness as traditional collections, while they also often had a strong bias towards larger, more conspicuous bees, like \u003cem\u003eBombus\u003c/em\u003e or \u003cem\u003eXylocopa\u003c/em\u003e, while small bees are underrepresented. This might also be true for Quito, as both genera of large bees are better represented than the smaller-sized genera in the families Halictidae, Megachilidae and Colletidae, even though our observations conducted at park Bicentenario showed smaller bees to be much more abundant (Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe believe that this knowledge should be applied in future landscaping choices inside Quito, both in parks and in gardens. That does not mean that ornamental, exotic flowers should be completely avoided, as most oligolectic bees are capable of foraging from them, albeit, to a lesser extent than their preferred host plants. We have identified the most visited plants, both in terms of richness and abundance, and we think that these species should get special attention in local nurseries with the intent on providing local parks, sidewalks and gardens with plants that contribute to the maintenance of the local ecosystem services. These plants, \u003cem\u003eDalea coerulea, Bidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eLupinus pubescens\u003c/em\u003e, should be included in future pollinator gardens implemented throughout the city, including the corridors that are formed with the various metropolitan parks and that allow the larger native coverage remnants to connect between each other.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe suggest maintaining regular, observational and photographic monitoring at park Bicentenario, as a reference for bee communities\u0026rsquo; health in the northern part of the city, and to extend the scope of this study by conducting similar monitoring inside the metropolitan parks of both the central and southern parts of the city where fewer and smaller parks could cause differences in the behavior and diversity of the bees when compared to those on the northern parishes of the city. Furthermore, future studies should aim to take into account color preference and flower availability inside more diverse floral neighborhoods, as well as to elaborate a more comprehensive, molecular data driven, list of the bees of the DMQ and other understudied areas of the High Andes.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e \u003ch2\u003eAuthor information\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eOrcid IDs\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEsteban Poveda-Proa\u0026ntilde;o\u0026thinsp;\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;0009-0002-4963-1033\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRaul Ontaneda-Gallegos\u0026thinsp;\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;0009-0005-5843-7656\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEmilia A Moreno-Coellar\u0026thinsp;\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;0000-0002-7865-4093\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026Aacute;lvaro Barragan\u0026thinsp;\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;0000-0001-6843-2975\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEthics declarations\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no competing interests. No endangered species were collected, collections and monitoring were conducted according to the protocols of the Museo QCAZ\u0026rsquo;s invertebrate section.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eFunding\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis article did not receive specific funding and was carried out independently by the Museo QCAZ Invertebrados, CIBIO Centro de investigaciones de la Biodiversidad, Pontificia Universidad Cat\u0026oacute;lica del Ecuador (PUCE), Quito, Ecuador.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eE.P and A.B proposed the mothodology and study site. E.P did the field work (monitoring), E.P and R.O reviewed the museum data and were in charge of bee indentification, E.P and R.O wrote the main manuscript. E.M created the interaction networks (figures 3 and 6-9), E.M and E.P conducted the statystical analysis. R.O prepared figures 1-2. All autors reviewed the manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis research was conducted under Research Permit No. MAATE-DBI-CM-2024-0440, issued to the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (PUCE).\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eData Availability\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eData obtained from the field monitoring conducted at the Bicentenario park is included in the supplementary materials, photographs taken during the monitoring have bee uploaded to iNaturalist under CC licensing. Aditional data can be requested to the autors.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAhrn\u0026eacute; K, Bengtsson J, Elmqvist T (2009) Bumble Bees (Bombus spp) along a Gradient of Increasing Urbanization. PLOS ONE 4(5):e5574. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005574\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAizen MA, Smith-Ram\u0026iacute;rez C, Morales CL, Vieli L, S\u0026aacute;ez A, Barahona-Segovia RM, Arbetman MP, Montalva J, Garibaldi LA, Inouye DW, Harder LD (2019) Coordinated species importation policies are needed to reduce serious invasions globally: The case of alien bumblebees in South America. Journal of Applied Ecology 56(1):100\u0026ndash;106. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13121\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAkahira Y, Beig D (1967) Comparative study of Corpora alata in brazilian stingless bees. Pap\u0026eacute;is Avulsos de Zoologia 20(1-21 (1967)):165\u0026ndash;190. https://doi.org/10.11606/0031-1049.1967.20p165-190\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAram F, Garc\u0026iacute;a EH, Solgi E, Mansournia S (2019) Urban green space cooling effect in cities. Heliyon 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01339\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBates AJ, Sadler JP, Fairbrass AJ, Falk SJ, Hale JD, Matthews TJ (2011) Changing bee and hoverfly pollinator assemblages along an urban-rural gradient. PLoS One 6(8):e23459. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023459\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBertoni A, Schrottky C (1910) Beitrag zur Kenntnis der mit tetralonia verwandten Bienen aus Sudamerika. Zoologische Jahrb\u0026uuml;cher 29(5):563\u0026ndash;598\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCameron P (1903) Descriptions of New Species of Hymenoptera Taken by Mr. Edward Whymper on the \u0026ldquo;Higher Andes of the Equator.\u0026rdquo; Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1890-) 29(3):225\u0026ndash;238\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCelis CJ, Aguilar-Benavides ML, Cure JR (2023) Behavior and nest architecture of the bee \u003cem\u003eCaenohalictus alexandrei\u003c/em\u003e (Hymenoptera, Halictinae). Pap Avulsos Zool 63:e202363002. https://doi.org/10.11606/1807-0205/2023.63.002\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChiappa E, Rojas M, Toro H (1990) Key For the Bee Genera of Chile Hymenoptera Apoidea. Rev Chilena Ent 18:67\u0026ndash;81\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChiesura A (2004) The role of urban parks for the sustainable city. Landscape and Urban Planning 68(1):129\u0026ndash;138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2003.08.003\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCockerell T (1907) Some Bees in the Museum of Comparative Zo\u0026ouml;logy, Harvard University. University of Colorado Studies 5(1):35\u0026ndash;39\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCockerell T (1900) Descriptions of New Bees Collected by Mr. H. H. Smith in Brazil\u0026mdash; I. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 52:356\u0026ndash;377\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCockerell TDA (1914) Bees from Ecuador and Peru. Journal of the New York Entomological Society 22(4):306\u0026ndash;328\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCockerell TDA (1913) XV.\u0026mdash;Descriptions and records of bees.\u0026mdash;LIII. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 12(67):103\u0026ndash;110. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222931308693377\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCrawford J (1901) North American Bees of the Genus Agapostemon Guerin. Proceedings of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences 7:156\u0026ndash;165\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDalmazzo M, Vossler FG (2015) Pollen host selection by a broadly polylectic halictid bee in relation to resource availability. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 9(3):253\u0026ndash;262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-015-9364-1\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDorey JB, Gilpin A-M, Johnston NP, Esquerr\u0026eacute; D, Hughes AC, Ascher JS, Orr MC (2026) Estimating global bee species richness and taxonomic gaps. Nat Commun 17(1):1762. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69029-4\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEickwort GC, Eickwort GC (1969) A comparative morphological study and generic revision of the augochlorine bees (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). The University of Kansas science bulletin 48(13):325--524. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.11227\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEngel MS (2000) Classification of the bee tribe Augochlorini (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). amnb 2000(250):1\u0026ndash;89. https://doi.org/10.1206/0003-0090(2000)250%253C0001:COTBTA%253E2.0.CO;2\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEPMMOP (2024) Parque Bicentenario \u0026ndash; EPMMOP. In: Empresa P\u0026uacute;blica Metropolitana de Movilidad y Obras P\u0026uacute;blicas. https://www.epmmop.gob.ec/parques/parque-bicentenario/. Accessed 29 Sept 2025\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFerrari A, Polidori C (2022) How city traits affect taxonomic and functional diversity of urban wild bee communities: insights from a worldwide analysis. Apidologie 53(4):46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-022-00950-5\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFerrari RR (2017) Taxonomic revision of the species of \u003cem\u003eColletes\u003c/em\u003e Latreille, 1802 (Hymenoptera: Colletidae: Colletinae) found in Chile. Zootaxa 4364(1):1\u0026ndash;137. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4364.1.1\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFerrari RR, Buschini MLT, Diniz MER, Zhu C-D, Melo GAR (2022) Discovery of Mourecotelles (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Colletinae) in Brazil: nesting biology and pollen preferences of a remarkable new species of the genus. Journal of Hymenoptera Research 89:211\u0026ndash;231. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.89.77485\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFigueroa JA, Castro SA, Reyes M, Teillier S (2018) Urban park area and age determine the richness of native and exotic plants in parks of a Latin American city: Santiago as a case study. Urban Ecosyst 21(4):645\u0026ndash;655. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0743-0\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFilho LC da R, Araujo TN, Melo AL de S e C, Ferreira TD, Augusto SC (2023) A picky generalist: nesting females of Pseudaugochlora graminea (Halictidae) are highly specialised in an urban area\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFogel NS, Shutterbee Participants, Camilo GR, Miller-Struttmann NE (2025) Can photography capture bee diversity? Evidence from professional and participatory scientists. Biodivers Conserv 34(8):2957\u0026ndash;2976. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-025-03105-x\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFont\u0026uacute;rbel FE, Mur\u0026uacute;a MM, Vieli L (2021) Invasion dynamics of the European bumblebee Bombus terrestris in the southern part of South America. Sci Rep 11(1):15306. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94898-8\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFrankie GW, Thorp R, Hernandez J, Rizzardi M, Ertter B, Pawelek JC, Witt SL, Schindler M, Coville R, Wojcik V (2009) Native bees are a rich natural resource in urban California gardens. California Agriculture 63(3)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFrankie GW, Thorp RW, Schindler M, Hernandez J, Ertter B, Rizzardi M (2005) Ecological Patterns of Bees and Their Host Ornamental Flowers in Two Northern California Cities. kent 78(3):227\u0026ndash;246. https://doi.org/10.2317/0407.08.1\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFreitas BM, Imperatriz-Fonseca VL, Medina LM, Kleinert A de MP, Galetto L, Nates-Parra G, Quezada-Eu\u0026aacute;n JJG (2009) Diversity, threats and conservation of native bees in the Neotropics. Apidologie 40(3):332\u0026ndash;346. https://doi.org/10.1051/apido/2009012\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFriese H (1900) Monographie der Bienengattung Centris (s.lat.). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 15(3/4):237\u0026ndash;350\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFriese H (1899) Monographie der Bienengattungen Megacilissa, Caupolicana und Oxaea. (Nachtrag zum I. Theil). Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 14(3/4):239\u0026ndash;246\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGeslin B, Morales CL (2015) New records reveal rapid geographic expansion of \u0026lt;em\u0026gt;Bombus terrestris \u0026lt;/em\u0026gt;Linnaeus, 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae), an invasive species in Argentina. Check List 11(3):1620\u0026ndash;1620. https://doi.org/10.15560/11.3.1620\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGon\u0026ccedil;alves RB (2021) A revised genus-level classification for the Neotropical groups of the cleptoparasitic bee tribe Sphecodini Schenck (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Halictinae)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGonzalez VH, Michener CD (2004) A New Chilicola Spinola from Colombian P\u0026aacute;ramo (Hymenoptera: Colletidae: Xeromelissinae). Journal of Hymenoptera Research 13:24\u0026ndash;30\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHausmann SL, Petermann JS, Rolff J (2016) Wild bees as pollinators of city trees. Insect Conservation and Diversity 9(2):97\u0026ndash;107. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12145\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIleana H, Vargas A, Rizzo K, Aguirre Z, Dillon I, Espinoza B, Espinoza F, Espinoza A, Ferrer-Paris J, Freire E, G\u0026oacute;mez C, Gutierrez D, Lozano V, Moscoso-Estrella A, Oleas N, Panchana O, Pardo S, Romoleroux K, Sandoya V, Ulloa-Ulloa C, Vieira I, L\u0026oacute;pez-Pujol J (2025) Compiling and analyzing the non-native flora of a megadiverse Neotropical country: a new catalogue for continental Ecuador. 100:155\u0026ndash;189. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.100.147213\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eInstituto Nacional de Estad\u0026iacute;sticas y Censos (2022) Distrito metropolitano de Quito. In: Censo Ecuador cuenta conmigo. https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNWUzMjQwOWMtZjFhOS00NjczLTk0YTItNjcwZmRmY2YxMjkyIiwidCI6ImYxNThhMmU4LWNhZWMtNDQwNi1iMGFiLWY1ZTI1OWJkYTExMiJ9\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIslam A, Pattnaik N, Moula MdM, R\u0026ouml;tzer T, Pauleit S, Rahman MA (2024) Impact of urban green spaces on air quality: A study of PM10 reduction across diverse climates. Science of The Total Environment 955:176770. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176770\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKlein A, Steffan\u0026ndash;Dewenter I, Tscharntke T (2003) Fruit set of highland coffee increases with the diversity of pollinating bees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences 270(1518):955\u0026ndash;961. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2306\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKowarik I (2011) Novel urban ecosystems, biodiversity, and conservation. Environmental Pollution 159(8):1974\u0026ndash;1983. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2011.02.022\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eKremen C, Williams NM, Bugg RL, Fay JP, Thorp RW (2004) The area requirements of an ecosystem service: crop pollination by native bee communities in California. Ecology Letters 7(11):1109\u0026ndash;1119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00662.x\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLi X, Wiens JJ (2023) Estimating Global Biodiversity: The Role of Cryptic Insect Species. Syst Biol 72(2):391\u0026ndash;403. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syac069\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMatteson KC, Ascher JS, Langellotto GA (2008) Bee Richness and Abundance in New York City Urban Gardens. Ann Entomol Soc Am 101(1):140\u0026ndash;150. https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2008)101%255B140:BRAAIN%255D2.0.CO;2\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMazzeo NM, Torretta JP (2015) Wild bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) in an urban botanical garden in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment 50(3):182\u0026ndash;193. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650521.2015.1093764\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMelo GAR (2025) Colletine bees and the flowers of the polygalaceous genus Monnina. Acta Biol\u0026oacute;gica Paranaense 54(1). https://doi.org/10.5380/abp.v54i1.96940\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMexia T, Vieira J, Pr\u0026iacute;ncipe A, Anjos A, Silva P, Lopes N, Freitas C, Santos-Reis M, Correia O, Branquinho C, Pinho P (2018) Ecosystem services: Urban parks under a magnifying glass. Environmental Research 160:469\u0026ndash;478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2017.10.023\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMichener CD (2007) The Bees of the World. JHU Press\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMitchell TB (1930) A Contribution to the Knowledge of Neotropical Megachile with Descriptions of New Species (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1890-) 56(3):155\u0026ndash;306\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMorandin LA, Kremen C (2013) Bee Preference for Native versus Exotic Plants in Restored Agricultural Hedgerows. Restoration Ecology 21(1):26\u0026ndash;32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1526-100X.2012.00876.x\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMoreno-Coellar EA, Garc\u0026iacute;a-Ruilova AB, Salazar-Buena\u0026ntilde;o F, Men\u0026eacute;ndez-Guerrero PA, Poveda-Proa\u0026ntilde;o E, Barrag\u0026aacute;n \u0026Aacute;, Donoso DA (2025) Bumble bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of Ecuador. 2025.10.15.682676\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMoure J (2000) The species of the genus Eulaema Lepeletier, 1841 (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Euglossinae). Acta Biol\u0026oacute;gica Paranaense 29. https://doi.org/10.5380/abpr.v29i0.582\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMoure JS (1964) Two New Genera of Halictine Bees from the Araucanian Subregion of South America (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 37(4):265\u0026ndash;275\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMoure JS, Urban D (2002) Cat\u0026aacute;logo de Apoidea da regi\u0026atilde;o neotropical (Hymenoptera, Colletidae). III: colletini. Rev Bras Zool 19:1\u0026ndash;30. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-81752002000100001\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNates-Parra G, Parra H A, Rodr\u0026iacute;guez A, Baquero P, V\u0026eacute;lez D (2006) Abejas silvestres (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) en ecosistemas urbanos: Estudio en la ciudad de Bogot\u0026aacute; y sus alrededores. Revista Colombiana de Entomolog\u0026iacute;a 32(1):77\u0026ndash;84\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNicholls CI, Altieri MA (2013) Plant biodiversity enhances bees and other insect pollinators in agroecosystems. A review. Agron Sustain Dev 33(2):257\u0026ndash;274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-012-0092-y\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNielsen AB, van den Bosch M, Maruthaveeran S, van den Bosch CK (2014) Species richness in urban parks and its drivers: A review of empirical evidence. Urban Ecosyst 17(1):305\u0026ndash;327. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-013-0316-1\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOrr MC, Hughes AC, Chesters D, Pickering J, Zhu C-D, Ascher JS (2021) Global Patterns and Drivers of Bee Distribution. Current Biology 31(3):451-458.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.053\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOrr MC, Hung K-LJ, Wilson-Rankin EE, Simpson PM, Yanega D, Kim AY, Ascher JS (2023) Scientific note: First mainland records of an unusual island bee (Anthophora urbana clementina) highlight the value of community science for adventive species detection and monitoring. Apidologie 54(5):46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-023-01025-9\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePacker L (2021) Two new species of Andinopanurgus (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae: Panurginae), with a description of the female of A. amyae. Journal of Melittology (101):1\u0026ndash;19. https://doi.org/10.17161/jom.i101.13338\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePadron S (2025) Supporting insect pollinators in Ecuador: visitation interactions to the native Andean plant Dalea coerulea (L.f.) Schinz \u0026amp; Thell (Fabales: Fabaceae). REVISTA CHILENA DE ENTOMOLOG\u0026Iacute;A 51:553\u0026ndash;565. https://doi.org/10.35249/rche.51.4.25.05\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePardee GL, Philpott SM (2014) Native plants are the bee\u0026rsquo;s knees: local and landscape predictors of bee richness and abundance in backyard gardens. Urban Ecosyst 17(3):641\u0026ndash;659. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-014-0349-0\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePawelek J, Gordon F, Robbin T, Maggie P (2017) Urban Horticulture: Ecology, Landscape, and Agriculture. CRC Press\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePeng M-H, Hung Y-C, Liu K-L, Neoh K-B (2020) Landscape configuration and habitat complexity shape arthropod assemblage in urban parks. Sci Rep 10(1):16043. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73121-0\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePhilpott SM, Lucatero A, Andrade S, Hernandez C, Bichier P (2023) Promoting Beneficial Arthropods in Urban Agroecosystems: Focus on Flowers, Maybe Not Native Plants. Insects 14(7):576. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14070576\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePotts SG, Biesmeijer JC, Kremen C, Neumann P, Schweiger O, Kunin WE (2010) Global pollinator declines: trends, impacts and drivers. Trends in Ecology \u0026amp; Evolution 25(6):345\u0026ndash;353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2010.01.007\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePoveda-Proa\u0026ntilde;o E (2024) Revisi\u0026oacute;n de la diversidad de Anthophila y su relaci\u0026oacute;n con la composici\u0026oacute;n vegetal en entornos urbanos dentro de Quito-Ecuador. Pontificia Universidad Cat\u0026oacute;lica del Ecuador\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePrendergast KS, Dixon KW, Bateman PW (2022) A global review of determinants of native bee assemblages in urbanised landscapes. Insect Conservation and Diversity 15(4):385\u0026ndash;405. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12569\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRoberts R (1969) Biology of the Bee Genus Agapostemon (Hymenoptera: Halictidae). The University of Kansas Science Bulletin 48(16):689\u0026ndash;719\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRoig Alsina A (2009) A revision of the bee genus Nomada in Argentina (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Nomadinae). MACN 11:221\u0026ndash;241. https://doi.org/10.22179/REVMACN.11.262\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRojas-Nossa SV, S\u0026aacute;nchez JM, Navarro L (2016) Nectar robbing: a common phenomenon mainly determined by accessibility constraints, nectar volume and density of energy rewards. Oikos 125(7):1044\u0026ndash;1055. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.02685\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRoyal Botanical Gardens (2025) Plants of the World Online | Kew Science. In: Plants of the World Online. https://powo.science.kew.org/. Accessed 1 Dec 2025\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRozen JG, Kamel SM (2008) Hospicidal Behavior of the Cleptoparasitic Bee Coelioxys (Allocoelioxys) coturnix, Including Descriptions of Its Larval Instars (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). novi 2008(3636):1\u0026ndash;15. https://doi.org/10.1206/619.1\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSchwarz HF (1943) Bees of the genus Anthidium from Peru. American Museum novitates, no 1242\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eScott VL, Kelley ST, Strickler K (2000) Reproductive Biology of Two Coelioxys Cleptoparasites in Relation to Their Megachile Hosts (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae). Ann Entomol Soc Am 93(4):941\u0026ndash;948. https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2000)093%255B0941:RBOTCC%255D2.0.CO;2\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSeitz N, vanEngelsdorp D, Leonhardt SD (2020) Are native and non-native pollinator friendly plants equally valuable for native wild bee communities? Ecology and Evolution 10(23):12838\u0026ndash;12850. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6826\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSilveira FA, Melo GAR, Almeida EAB (2002) Abelhas brasileiras: sistem\u0026aacute;tica e identifica\u0026ccedil;\u0026atilde;o, 1. ed. Silveira, Belo Horizonte\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTepedino VJ, Portman ZM (2021) Intensive monitoring for bees in North America: indispensable or improvident? Insect Conservation and Diversity 14(5):535\u0026ndash;542. https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12509\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThapa RB (2006) Honeybees and other Insect Pollinators of Cultivated Plants: A Review. Journal of the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science 27:1\u0026ndash;23. https://doi.org/10.3126/jiaas.v27i0.691\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTommasi D, Miro A, Higo HA, Winston ML (2004) Bee diversity and abundance in an urban setting. The Canadian Entomologist 136(6):851\u0026ndash;869. https://doi.org/10.4039/n04-010\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTurley NE, Kania SE, Petitta IR, Otruba EA, Biddinger DJ, Butzler TM, Sesler VV, L\u0026oacute;pez-Uribe MM (2024) Bee monitoring by community scientists: comparing a collections-based program with iNaturalist. Ann Entomol Soc Am 117(4):220\u0026ndash;233. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesa/saae014\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eVillamizar G, Fern\u0026aacute;ndez F, Vivallo F (2020) Synopsis of the carpenter bee subgenus Xylocopa (Schonnherria) Lepeletier, 1841 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Colombia, with designation of lectotypes and the description of two new species. Zootaxa 4789(2):301\u0026ndash;347. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4789.2.1\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWilson JS, Pan AD, General DEM, Koch JB (2020) More eyes on the prize: an observation of a very rare, threatened species of Philippine Bumble bee, Bombus irisanensis, on iNaturalist and the importance of citizen science in conservation biology. J Insect Conserv 24(4):727\u0026ndash;729. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-020-00233-3\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWilson JS, Wilson TM, Packer C, Pacheco O (2025) A Preliminary, Photography-Based Assessment of Bee Diversity at the Finca Bot\u0026aacute;nica Organic Farm in the Central Pacific Coast of Ecuador. Conservation 5(4):57. https://doi.org/10.3390/conservation5040057\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWorld Meteorological Organization (2013) World Weather Information Service. In: World Weather Information Service-Quito. https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/. Accessed 28 Feb 2026\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTables 1 to 4 are available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"urban-ecosystems","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"ueco","sideBox":"Learn more about [Urban Ecosystems](https://www.springer.com/journal/11252)","snPcode":"11252","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/11252/3","title":"Urban Ecosystems","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Biodiversity, Citizen science, Native bees, Pollination, Urban ecology","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9246974/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9246974/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eAcross the Andes, bees are a heavily understudied group of insects, and despite it being seemingly counterintuitive, urban ecosystems are home to some of the least studied bees in the region. This, combined with the largely modified plant communities that characterize South American urban green spaces, where European and North American flora often rivals in abundance and richness with that of native plants, makes it so Andean cities like Quito, Ecuador, are perfect for studying both the ecology of bee pollinators, as well as the impact that exotic species have on native bees. We reviewed the reported diversity and interactions inside citizen science platform iNaturalist and in local entomological collections, and we also conducted direct observations on 5 native and 3 exotic plant species inside a city park during a four-month period, of which 6 species produced sufficient flowering for analysis, all in order to answer: 1) What is the diversity and spatial distribution of bee species and their plant associations across the urban green spaces of Quito? 2) Do native bee species show stronger preferences for native versus exotic flowering plants, and which plant species are most important for urban pollinators? We were able to identify 31 morphospecies belonging to five bee families, of which only one species was exotic. When excluding the exotic \u003cem\u003eApis mellifera\u003c/em\u003e, all four native bee families showed preference towards native flowering plants, although most bees were also shown to be polylectic, capable of visiting other flowers whenever their preferred food source was not available. We determined that abundance and richness of native plants held the highest correlation with native bee diversity, and we also identified \u003cem\u003eDalea coerula, Bidens andicola\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eLupinus pubescens\u003c/em\u003e as the most important plants for urban pollinators inside the city of Quito. Overall, the implementation of native plant patches inside urban greenspaces is a decisive factor for bee conservancy in urban ecosystems of South America.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Ecology of Urban Bees: Preference for Native Plants in the Green Spaces of Quito","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-05-15 07:02:20","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9246974/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"105862227870178667585342686281454966662","date":"2026-05-18T10:42:07+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"262118580540341159005665534385452438955","date":"2026-05-17T10:05:38+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-05-05T07:22:15+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-04-23T23:48:05+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Urban Ecosystems","date":"2026-04-22T16:27:18+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"urban-ecosystems","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"ueco","sideBox":"Learn more about [Urban Ecosystems](https://www.springer.com/journal/11252)","snPcode":"11252","submissionUrl":"https://submission.nature.com/new-submission/11252/3","title":"Urban Ecosystems","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"b895e640-0d9e-43ff-b9b5-420a67c59661","owner":[],"postedDate":"May 15th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"105862227870178667585342686281454966662","date":"2026-05-18T10:42:07+00:00","index":21,"fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"262118580540341159005665534385452438955","date":"2026-05-17T10:05:38+00:00","index":20,"fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"10","date":"2026-05-05T07:22:15+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-05-15T07:02:20+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-05-15 07:02:20","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-9246974","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-9246974","identity":"rs-9246974","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}