In this study, we use permutation tree modeling to investigate
the effects of local and landscape-level habitat composition on
bee communities within a coffee and forest landscape mosaic, in
Chiapas, Mexico. Based on previous studies, we hypothesize that
high levels of forest cover will be the most critical factor for
wood-nesting and social bee abundance, while high herb density
will be essential for solitary bee abundance within shade coffee
systems (Klein et al., 2003b). We also hypothesize that groundnesting
bees will be negatively impacted by coffee bush density,
while cavity-nesting bees will be primarily dependent on the availability
of overstory trees for nesting resources. Utilizing conditional
inference trees, we ask (1) How do bee communities
change across landscapes with increasing forest availability? (2)
How do bee communities respond to different agroforestry vegetation
management styles? (3) Are local or landscape-level habitat
factors more important for bee abundance and species richness?
Specifically, we examine the responses of multiple functional
groups within the bee community, based on sociality, evolutionary
history, and nesting, in order to reveal functional group-specific
answers to these critical questions.