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opencc-zeroJan 2022View details →

Mechanisms of dietary resource partitioning in large-herbivore assemblages: a plant-trait-based approach

Sympatric large mammalian herbivore species differ in diet composition, both by eating different parts of the same plant and by eating different plant species. Various theories proposed to explain these differences are not mutually exclusive, but are difficult to reconcile and confront with data. Moreover, whereas several of these ideas were originally developed with reference to within-plant partitioning (i.e., consumption of different tissues), they may analogously apply to partitioning of plant species; this possibility has received little attention. Plant functional traits provide a novel window into herbivore diets and a means of testing multiple hypotheses in a unified framework. We used DNA metabarcoding to characterize the diets of 14 sympatric large-herbivore species in an African savanna and analyzed diet composition in light of 27 functional traits that we measured locally for 204 plant species. Plant traits associated with the deep phylogenetic split between grasses and eudicots formed the primary axis of resource partitioning, affirming the generality and importance of the grazer-browser spectrum. A secondary axis comprised plant traits relevant to herbivore body size. Plant taxa in the diets of large-bodied species were lower on average in digestible energy and protein, taller on average (especially among grazers), and tended to be higher in tensile strength, zinc, stem-specific density, and potassium (and lower in sodium, stem dry matter content, and copper). These results are consistent with longstanding hypotheses linking body size with forage quality and plant height, yet they also suggest the existence of undiscovered links between herbivore body size and a set of rarely considered food-plant traits. We also tested the novel hypothesis that the leaf economic spectrum (LES), a major focus in plant ecology, is an axis of resource partitioning in large-herbivore assemblages; we found that the LES was a minor axis of individual variation within a few species, but had little effect on interspecific dietary differentiation. Synthesis. These results identify key plant traits that underpin the partitioning of food-plant species in large-herbivore communities and suggest that accounting for multiple plant traits (and tradeoffs among them) will enable a deeper understanding of herbivore-plant interaction networks.

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2022View details →

An overview of bioinformatics, genomics and transcriptomics resources for bryophytes. Supplemental data

supplemental data file 1 - bryophyte transcriptomes

opencc-zeroFeb 2022View details →

Data from: Geographical variation in ant foraging activity and resource use is driven by climate and net primary productivity

Aim: Foraging activity is critical for animal survival. Comprehending how ecological drivers influence foraging behavior would benefit our understanding of the link between animals and ecological processes. Here, we evaluated the influence of ecological drivers on ant foraging activity and relative resource use. Location: Six Brazilian biomes: Amazon, Atlantic rainforest, Caatinga, Cerrado, Pampa and Pantanal. Taxon: Formicidae. Methods: We assessed ant foraging activity and resource use by sampling across 60 sites. We placed baited tubes that contained one of five liquid resources (sugar, lipids, amino acid, sodium and distilled water). We used model selection to assess the influence of ecological drivers (temperature, precipitation, temperature seasonality and net primary productivity) on ant foraging activity and relative resource use. Results: Foraging activity was higher in wetter, more productive and less thermally seasonal environments. The relative use of amino acids increased at higher temperatures while the relative use of lipids decreased. The relative use of sugar increased in drier and less productive environments with high temperature seasonality while the relative use of amino acid and sodium decreased in those environments. The relative use of lipids was complex: increasing with increasing temperature seasonality and decreasing with increasing precipitation. Further, the relative use of sodium was greater where the foraging activity was high. Main Conclusions: We demonstrate how ecological drivers are correlated to ant foraging activity and resource use in the field across large spatial scales. The search for resources encompasses different interactions involving ants with abiotic and biotic components in the ecosystem. Thus, we suggest that changes in climate and NPP, which influence the intensity and the way that ants search for resources, will result in changes in ant-mediated ecological processes.

opencc-zeroFeb 2022View details →

Data from: Rich resource environment of fish farms facilitates phenotypic variation and virulence in an opportunistic fish pathogen

Phenotypic variation is suggested to facilitate the persistence of environmentally growing pathogens under environmental change. Here we hypothesized that the intensive farming environment induces higher phenotypic variation in microbial pathogens than natural environment, because of high stochasticity for growth and stronger survival selection compared to the natural environment. We tested the hypothesis with an opportunistic fish pathogen Flavobacterium columnare isolated either from fish farms or from natural waters. We measured growth parameters of two morphotypes from all isolates in different resource concentrations and two temperatures relevant for the occurrence of disease epidemics at farms and tested their virulence using a zebrafish (Danio rerio) infection model. According to our hypothesis, isolates originating from the fish farms had higher phenotypic variation in growth between the morphotypes than the isolates from natural waters. The difference was more pronounced in higher resource concentrations and the higher temperature, suggesting that phenotypic variation is driven by the exploitation of increased outside-host resources at farms. Phenotypic variation of virulence was not observed based on isolate origin but only based on morphotype. However, when in contact with the larger fish, the less virulent morphotype of some of the isolates also had high virulence. As the less virulent morphotype also had higher growth rate in outside-host resources, the results suggest that both morphotypes can contribute to F. columnare epidemics at fish farms, especially with current prospects of warming temperatures. Our results suggest that higher phenotypic variation per se does not lead to higher virulence, but that environmental conditions at fish farms could select isolates with high phenotypic variation in bacterial population and hence affect evolution in F. columnare at fish farms. Our results highlight the multifaceted effects of human-induced environmental alterations in shaping epidemiology and evolution in microbial pathogens.

opencc-zeroFeb 2022View details →

Chimpanzees as ecosystem service providers: Seed dispersal of an economically important plant resource

Vertebrate-mediated seed dispersal is vital to the maintenance of diversity in tropical ecosystems, and seed-dispersing animals are increasingly thought to provide ecosystem services by dispersing the seeds of plant species utilized by people. However, few studies have demonstrated a link between vertebrate frugivores and plants used by people, thus limiting the generalizability of the seed-disperser-as-ecosystem-service-provider concept. We examined the effectiveness of western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) as seed dispersers (i.e., their influence on seedling recruitment) of an economically important fruit resource, Saba senegalensis, at the site of Fongoli, a savanna-woodland environment in southeastern Senegal. The fruit from the Saba vine is commonly harvested from the wild by local people and is also an important food item for chimpanzees. We conducted germination experiments on gut-passed seeds alongside non-gut-passed seeds and analyzed the germination success of chimpanzee-dispersed seeds in situ. We also analyzed the effect of habitat type and canopy cover at each seed dispersal site to determine which sites are most suitable for Saba germination. Germination trials showed that chimpanzee gut passage and manual pulp removal increased the likelihood of germination over seeds left intact. Nearly a quarter of chimpanzee-dispersed seeds germinated in situ and Saba seeds were distributed non-randomly throughout Fongoli, with more dispersed seeds found in habitats most suitable for Saba germination. These results suggest that chimpanzees aid in the early stages of Saba recruitment and thus provide an ecosystem service via seed dispersal that may contribute to the well-being of local people.

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2022View details →

Input data for the Resources for the Future Socioeconomic Projections (RFF-SPs)

This repository contains large input data files for generating the RFF-SPs, and small accompanying files with data necessary for interpreting the larger files. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /MSW_GDP/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -MSW.mat is a MATLAB data file based on Müller, Stock, and Watson (forthcoming) containing two series:     1) Year-by-sample draws "F-paths" representing frontier values of ln(GDP/capita) for the OECD, and      2) Year-by-country-by-sample deviations from those F-paths, denoted as the U-path. A country's ln(GDP/capita) is equal to the sum of the sample's F-path and the country-sample's U-path. There are 418 years representing 1900-2317, 113 countries with names in country_names.txt, and 2000 sample trajectories. GDP/capita is measured in 2011$. -country_names.txt contain iso codes for the 113 countries in the order in which they appear in MSW.mat's U-path object. OECD countries are indicated with an "x" for reference. This information was transmitted via email from Ulrich Mueller (Princeton) to Kevin Rennert (RFF) on January 28, 2020, with a link to the file on Mueller's website at http://www.princeton.edu/~umueller/matlabJan2020.mat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Raftery population/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -pop_trajectories_probmig.csv contains country-by-year-by-sample (here, a sample is labelled a "Trajectory") population estimates based on Raftery and &Scaron;evčíková (2021). Population is in units of thousands of people, with 1000 samples. This data was transmitted via email by Hana Sevcikova (University of Washington) to Kevin Rennert (RFF) on August 11, 2021. -death_rates.csv contains country-by-year-by-sample death rates in units of annual deaths per one thousand people, with 1000 samples corresponding to the sample order of samples in pop_trajectories_probmig.csv. This data was transmitted via email by Hana Sevcikova (University of Washington) to Kevin Rennert (RFF) on October 7, 2021. -iso_key.csv contains a key mapping ISO alpha-3 country codes ("ISO3") to ISO numeric-3 country codes (denoted "NumericCode" in this file and "LocID" in pop_trajectories_probmig.csv). This data was acquired from a search on https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#search in 2021. The "country codes" box was checked and no keywords were used. The list was trimmed to the 184 countries included in the current version of the GIVE model. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The probabilistic economic and emissions projections are from Müller, Stock, and Watson (forthcoming).  The probabilistic population projections were produced by Adrian E. Raftery and Hana &Scaron;evčíková (University of Washington), using the methods described by Raftery and &Scaron;evčíková (2021). Please cite this reference in any publications using these projections. Their research was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under NIH grant number R01 HD-070936.   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- References   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Müller, U.K, Stock, J.H., and Watson, M.W. (forthcoming). An Econometric Model of International Growth Dynamics for Long-Horizon Forecasting. The Review of Economics and Statistics, available online 30 October 2020. URL: https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/doi/10.1162/rest_a_00997/97738/An-Econometric-Model-of-International-Growth  Raftery, A.E. and &Scaron;evčíková, H. (2021). Probabilistic population forecasting: Short to very long-term. International Journal of Forecasting, available online 7 October 2021. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207021001394

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2022View details →

natural resource ontology

Some natural resources in owl ontology.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Data from: Host sex modulates the energetics of pathogen proliferation and its dependence on environmental resources

Sex differences in immunity are predicted to underlie much of the frequently observed sex differences in the prevalence or severity of infection. We propose the additional hypothesis that differences in the ability of males and females to acquire and use resources will also affect how readily a pathogen can convert host energy into transmission stages, thereby contributing to sex differences in infection dynamics. To test this we manipulated the resource environment of male and female Daphnia magna by altering the availability of food and then exposed hosts to a bacterial pathogen. We measured the production of transmission spores and virulence via the reduction in life span, together with feeding rates and changes in mass-independent metabolic rate, as a measure of the intake and expenditure of energy during infection. When raised in the presence of high resource levels, females more readily allowed for resources in the environment to be translated to pathogen exploitation, as represented by increased spore production, greater virulence, and higher energy use. In contrast, the traits of infected males were robust to changes in resource availability. High food availability thus exaggerated the degree of sexual dimorphism observed between the sexes. It also modified the relationship between host energy use, virulence, and pathogen spore production for each sex. These results suggest that a host's resource environment can affect how a male or female is exploited by a pathogen and may thus be an additional factor driving sex-specific patterns of disease susceptibility or severity.

opennotspecifiedMar 2022View details →

FIGURE 1 in Type specimens of vascular plants in the herbarium of the National Institute of Biological Resources (II)

FIGURE 1. Type specimens in the herbarium of the National Institute of Biological Resources. 1. Asplenium ×bimixtum, 2. Asplenium ×uiryeongse, 3. Anemone pendulisepala, 4. Broussonetia ×hanjiana, 5. Pseudostellaria baekdusanensis, 6. Pseudostellaria ×bohyeonsanensis, 7. Pseudostellaria palibiniana var. gageodoensis, 8. Pseudostellaria ×segeolsanensis, 9. Viola breviflora.

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

The developmental high-wire: Balancing resource investment in immunity and reproduction

The strategic allocation of resources into immunity poses a unique challenge for individuals, where infection at different stages of development may result in unique trade-offs with concurrent physiological processes or future fitness-enhancing traits. Here, we experimentally induced an immune challenge in female Gryllus firmus crickets to test whether illness at discrete life stages differentially impacts fitness. We injected heat-killed Serratia marcescens bacteria into antepenultimate juveniles, penultimate juveniles, sexually-immature adults, and sexually-mature adults, and then measured body growth, instar duration, mating rate, viability of stored sperm, egg production, oviposition rate, and egg viability. Immune activation significantly impacted reproductive traits, where females that were immune-challenged as adults had decreased mating success and decreased egg viability compared to healthy individuals or females that were immune-challenged as juveniles. Although there was no effect of an immune challenge on the other traits measured, the stress of handling resulted in reduced mass gain and smaller adult body size in females from the juvenile treatments, and females in the adult treatments suffered from reduced viability of sperm stored within their spermatheca. In summary, we found that an immune challenge does have negative impacts on reproduction, but also that even minor acute stressors can have significant impacts on fitness-enhancing traits. These findings highlight that the factors affecting fitness can be complex and at times unpredictable, and that the consequences of illness are specific to when during an individual's life an immune-challenge is induced.

Heterogeneity in resource competition covaries with individual variation in long-term social relationships

Resource competition among conspecifics is central to social evolution, as it serves as one of the primary selective pressures of group living. This is because the degree of competition for resources impacts the costs and benefits of social interactions. Despite this, how heterogeneity in resource competition drives variation in the type and quantity of long-term social relationships individuals foster has been overlooked. By measuring male mating competition and female foraging competition in a highly social, long-lived mammal, we demonstrate that individual variation in long-term intrasexual social relationships covaries with preferred habitat and experienced resource competition, and this effect differs based on the sex of the individual. Specifically, greater resource competition resulted in fewer social preferences, but the magnitude of the effect varied by both habitat and sex, whereas for social avoidances, both the directionality and magnitude of the effect of resource competition varied by habitat and sex. Together our work shows how fine-scale variation in individual socioecological niches (i.e., unique physical and social environments) can drive extensive variation in individual social behavior (here long-term relationships) within a population, thereby broadening current theories of social evolution.

Dynamic sensitivity to resource availability influences population responses to mismatches in a shorebird

Climate change has caused shifts in seasonally recurring biological events leading to the temporal decoupling of consumer-resource pairs – i.e., phenological mismatching. Although mismatches often affect individual fitness, they do not invariably scale up to affect populations, making it difficult to assess the risk they pose. Individual variation may contribute to this inconsistency, with changes in resource availability and consumer needs leading mismatches to have different outcomes over time. Nevertheless, most models estimate a consumer's match from a single timepoint, potentially obscuring when mismatches matter to populations. We analyzed how the effects of mismatches varied over time by studying precocial Hudsonian godwit (Limosa haemastica) chicks and their invertebrate prey from 2009 to 2019. We developed individual and population level models to determine how age-specific variation affect the relationship between godwits and resource availability. We found that periods with abundant resources led to higher growth and survival of godwit chicks, but also that chick survival was increasingly related to the availability of larger prey as chicks aged. At the population level, estimates of mismatches using age-structured consumer demand explained more variation in annual godwit fledging rates than more commonly used alternatives. Our study suggests that modeling the effects of mismatches as the disrupted interaction between dynamic consumer needs and resource availability clarifies when mismatches matter to both individuals and populations.

Spatially discrete disturbance processes enhance grassland floral resources

Grasslands provide essential floral resources for both managed and wild pollinators. However, grassland flowers in remaining native landscapes are threatened due to nonnative plant invasions and alterations to historic disturbance regimes such as fire and grazing. The potential for managed disturbance to promote grassland floral resources remains unclear. Fire and grazing historically occurred interactively, but uniform application of each may be a detriment to floral resources and the pollinators depending on them. Though fire can increase resources available to plants and stimulate flowering, it initially destroys floral resources and may delay flower availability. Similarly, grazing removes competitors of flowering plants, but destroys flower heads. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated the impacts patch-burn grazing with one and two seasons of fire per year versus season-long grazing with no fire on floral resources in mixed-grass prairie. In patch-burn treatments, part of each pasture is burned each year, which focuses grazing activity due to the high quality regrowth. We aimed to use fire to remove litter around flowering plants while also sheltering established flower heads from grazing pressure by directing cattle away from regenerating forbs in unburned portions of the landscape. Over two summers, we performed weekly flower surveys in season-long grazing and patch-burn grazing pastures. We analyzed total seasonal floral resources, maximum floral abundance, and seasonal species richness between treatments. Over two years, we surveyed 1,238,241 ramets of 160 species, focusing on 36 common species for individual analysis. We found broad positive associations between patch-burn grazing and total seasonal flower abundance, maximum flower abundance, and species richness compared to traditional management. In most cases, patch-burn grazing with dormant and growing season fires produced higher floral abundance, total seasonal floral resources, and species richness than patch-burning with dormant season fires alone, suggesting benefits of increased levels of pyrodiversity. Synthesis and applications: Under increasing pressure to manage for declining pollinators, rangeland managers must consider strategies to enhance floral resources within the context of livestock production goals. The spatiotemporal interaction of cattle grazing and fire shows promise for promoting floral resource abundance and diversity.

Factors driving the within-plant patterns of resource exploitation in a herbivore

1. Selective pressures exerted on the feeding behavior of animals have been extensively studied to understand their foraging patterns. In herbivores, specific within-plant patterns of resource exploitation have been reported, but their determinants remain poorly understood. 2. Here, we describe and decipher the determinants of the foraging pattern of the pollen beetle, Brassicogethes aeneus, a pollinivorous insect that is a pest of oilseed rape (Brassica napus). This insect feeds from flowers for almost all of its life cycle, except for a couple of weeks preceding blossoming. During this period, only flower buds are available and the insect destroys them to feed from the pollen they contain, causing serious yield losses. 3. We found that during this critical period, pollen beetles exhibit a stereotypic intra-inflorescence feeding pattern that depends on flower bud maturity. To explain this pattern, we first deciphered the selective pressures driving pollen beetles' feeding behavior. Using a set of manipulative laboratory experiments, including behavioral experiments on plant tissues and artificial substrates, chemical characterization of plant tissues and performance experiments, we show that the pollen beetles' feeding behavior does not seem to be driven by specialized metabolites or an attempt to reach an optimal nutrient balance, but rather by a process of maximization of total macronutrient intake. Next, using Optimal Diet Choice models, we found that one aspect of the intra-inflorescence feeding pattern, the preference for young over old flower buds, could be well explained through the lens of total macronutrient intake maximization per unit of time to access the resource. 4. Our study provides new insights into small-scale foraging patterns, and highlights the need to characterize and assess the relative influence of several components of diet quality when deciphering selective pressures driving foraging patterns.

Bringing Back the Manchester Argus Coenonympha tullia ssp. davus (Fabricius 1777): Quantifying the habitat resource requirements to inform the successful reintroduction of a specialist peatland butterfly

2021-30 has been designated the UN decade of ecosystem restoration. A landscape scale peatland restoration project is being undertaken on Chat Moss, Greater Manchester, UK, with conservation translocations an important component of this work. The Manchester Argus Coenonympha tullia ssp. davus, a specialist butterfly of lowland raised bogs in the northwest of England, UK is under threat due to severe habitat loss and degradation. A species reintroduction was planned for spring 2020. This study aimed to quantify the resource thresholds for C. tullia, in order to assess potential risks for the project. Thirteen peatland habitat patches with either recent historic or current C. tullia populations were surveyed for biotic and abiotic factors based on previous qualitative research on the species' requirements. Percentage cover of two habitat resources were found to be the strongest predictors in models of C. tullia presence: cross-leaved heath Erica tetralix and hair's-tail cotton-sedge Eriophorum vaginatum. Critical inflection points on logistic regression curves were used to make quantitative estimates of the minimum requirement of each resource for population survival and the near-optimum abundance of each resource. The results of this study improve our understanding of C. tullia's ecology and the restoration of peatlands for its reintroduction. Additionally, the method has wider utility for the quantitative assessment of habitat readiness before attempting species reintroductions.

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Wildfire extends the shelf-life of elk nutritional resources regardless of fire severity

Large-scale, high severity wildfires are increasingly frequent across the western United States. Fire severity affects the amount of vegetation removed and helps dictate what, where, and how many plants regenerate postfire, potentially altering the available habitat and nutritional landscape for wildlife. To evaluate the effects of fire severity on summer nutritional resources for elk (Cervus canadensis), we collected field data and remotely sensed information in years two and three after a large-scale wildfire to compare forage quality and quantity across forest types and fire severities within the summer range of one elk population in west-central Montana. To understand the landscape level effects of fire severity on nutritional resources, we developed predictive forage quality and quantity models. We used these models to predict nutritional resources across the landscape for four scenarios representing different fire severity patterns (i.e., an unburned landscape, a landscape burned only at low severity, a landscape burned only at high severity, and the observed landscape burned at a mixed severity). Shortly after the wildfire, summer forage quality and herbaceous forage quantity increased in both mesic and dry mixed conifer forests regardless of fire severity. Summer shrub forage quantity was greater in unburned mesic and dry forests, and there was no difference between fire severities in dry forests. Low severity burned mesic forests had significantly greater shrub forage quantity compared to high severity burned mesic forests. The three predicted fire scenarios had the highest percentage of the summer range with adequate forage quality which increased throughout the summer. In contrast, the predicted unburned landscape had the lowest percentage of adequate forage quality which decreased throughout the summer. Wildfire extended the duration in which elk can access high quality forage in the summer in years two and three postfire. Therefore, shortly after a large-scale wildfire, elk may be better able to meet their nutritional requirements which may positively impact elk body condition, reproductive performance, and survival.

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Richness and abundance of both butterflies and floral resources in residential gardens across southwestern Melbourne, Australia's greater metropolitan area

Wildlife gardening is a popular activity undertaken within residential areas. It is broadly promoted as a means of encouraging residents to make their gardens more 'wildlife friendly'. While theory and anecdotal evidence suggest these schemes should be effective, quantitative evaluation of wildlife gardening practices and programs is lacking across most taxa they target. Our overall objective in collecting this data was to determine if there was a difference in butterfly richness or abundance between gardens managed and not managed to benefit wildlife. To test this, the data were collected at two spatial scales: landscape level representing our 500x500 m sampling cells and garden level representing our wildlife and traditional residential gardens. At the landscape level, butterfly and floral data were collected along a 1-km long Pollard walk through the sampling cell. At the garden level we conducted point counts for butterflies in residential gardens participating in a wildlife gardening program and compared them to non-participating control gardens within the same sampling cell and from areas not targeted by the gardening program. At both levels we counted floral resources and calculated tree cover (%) within the surrounding landscape as both are important potential resources for butterflies within the landscape. The amount (%) of impervious surface cover within the entire sampling cell and within the landscape surrounding each garden was also measured as it is known to have a negative effect on the butterfly community.

opencc-by-4.0May 2022View details →

Evonne: Interactive Proof Visualization for Description Logics (System Description) - IJCAR22 - Resources

- evonne-experiments-ijcar22.zip: contains data and scripts used in the experiments. - evonne-tool-ijcar22.zip: contains the version of Evonne described in the paper. For more about Evonne (latest version, publications), visit <a href="https://imld.de/evonne">https://imld.de/evonne</a>

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Data for: Biogeographic history predicts bee community structure across floral resource gradients in southeast Australia

Aim: Plants populations are declining in their native ranges around the globe through the expansion of agriculture, urbanization, and plant invasions. We test the hypothesis that animal species that have spent more of their evolutionary history in a region are more dependent on native plants, particularly those plants that have spent more of their evolutionary history in the region, and are therefore more negatively impacted by native plant decline. Location: Yarra Valley landscapes, Australia Methods: We test the presence and pattern of phylogenetic signal in native bee community responses to local flower density of ancient Australian plant lineages and the amount of native vegetation in the surrounding landscape across farm and native vegetation sites. We also test phylogenetic signal in the frequency of bee visitation to flowers from ancient Australian plant lineages. We compare the patterns of phylogenetic signal to the current understanding of bee biogeographic histories to evaluate our hypothesis. Results: There was significant phylogenetic signal in responses to flower density of plants from ancient Australian lineages, and the frequency of visitation to these flowers, with most species from the ancient Australian bee clade being positively associated with these flowers. This is consistent with our hypothesis. Significant phylogenetic signal in response to native vegetation in the surrounding landscape was driven primarily by the more recently arrived bee linages, with ancient lineages able to persist on some farms where ancient Australian flowers were present (e.g. on roadsides). Main conclusions: Bee species that have spent more of their evolutionary history in Australia are more dependent on ancient Australian plant lineages and so most negatively impacted by the decline of these plants. This may be a broader phenomenon because phylogenetic conservatism in host plant use, the main assumption underlying our hypothesis, is common among herbivorous arthropods (~500,000 species).