R Code and Data for: Prescribed fire increases the number of ground-nesting bee nests in tallgrass prairie remnants

Abstract

Bees were collected using emergence traps from June 13, 2019 to August 22, 2019 from four remnant prairie sites in western Minnesota that were patch burned in spring of 2019 to determine whether ground-nesting bees prefer to nest in burned or unburned areas of prairies. Bees were identified to species and the number of nests was used to determine community similarity using Bray-Curtis index and to determine the Effective Number of Species of bees.

For each site and sample round, we also measured various characteristics of the floral community and microhabitat that may relate to bee nesting preferences. We measured floral abundance by counting flowers and determining average flowers per site and round. We also measured flower diversity by identifying flowering species every site and round. We determined floral community similarity using the Bray-Curtis index and determined the Effective Number of Species using the species and abundance data for the floral community. We also measured mean percent bare ground, mean vegetative cover, and mean thatch depth per site and same round.