Meeting Abstract
Adequate numbers of flowering plants are essential for the health of pollinator populations – bumblebees are no exception to this phenomenon. Temperature changes due to climate change have resulted in documented instances of phenological shifts in both flowering plants and in bumblebee emergence. Interestingly, phenological shifts do not necessarily operate on the same temporal and spacial scale across species within an ecosystem. This creates the possibility of phenological mismatch – in which bumblebee populations attempt to forage at times when flower density is low. The impacts of phenological mismatches may be exacerbated in high-elevation alpine systems, which have shorter growing and foraging seasons. For example, if spring- and summer-flowering plants don’t experience phenological shifts on the same time scale, bumblebees could encounter a resource gap. We monitored both flowering phenology (through marked plots) and bumblebee activity (through vane traps and plot observations) in Grand Teton National Park from late May to early June. We tracked spring phenology of 35 different flowering plant species and identified six species of queens foraging locally. Forager density was low throughout the majority of the study. These data will facilitate long-term studies of phenological mismatch in alpine ecosystems.
