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<p>Urbanization creates novel environmental conditions that challenge individual survival. The expansion of building areas, along with habitat loss and rising temperatures in urban areas, not only affect species diversity and composition, but often drive morphological, physiological, and functional changes either as adaptative responses or as outcomes of environmental stress. Such individual-level shifts in key traits can compromise critical ecosystem services like pollination. In this sense, orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) are essential pollinators in Neotropical ecosystems and could serve as excellent model organisms for studying whether potential effects of urbanization on morphology compromise specialized pollination services. In this study, we sampled orchid bee communities across 14 sites representing an urbanization gradient in a Neotropical city surrounded by cloud forest in Mexico. We estimated urbanization using satellite imagery, assessed a set of morphometric measurements in the five most abundant orchid bee species, and quantified pollination of <i>Gongora galeata</i> (Orchidaceae), a specialized orchid that is exclusively pollinated by <i>Euglossa obrima</i>. Whitin the euglossine assemblage, urbanization was associated with smaller body sizes (i.e. head width) and higher wing asymmetry, revealing developmental stress. In the case of <i>E. obrima</i>, wing asymmetry was associated with lower pollination probability of <i>G. galeata</i>. These findings suggest that urbanization drives morphological variation in orchid bees, and provide novel evidence that these changes may have consequences for orchid pollination, a fundamental ecosystem service provided by these specialized Neotropical bees.</p>

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Morphological shifts in orchid bees linked to urbanization compromise pollination services

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月14日

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  • Álvaro Hernández-Rivera,
  • Diana Ivette Domínguez-Plandiura,
  • Pedro Henrique de Oliveira Ribeiro,
  • Wesley Dáttilo,
  • Bibiana Montoya,
  • Daniel González-Tokman

摘要

Urbanization creates novel environmental conditions that challenge individual survival. The expansion of building areas, along with habitat loss and rising temperatures in urban areas, not only affect species diversity and composition, but often drive morphological, physiological, and functional changes either as adaptative responses or as outcomes of environmental stress. Such individual-level shifts in key traits can compromise critical ecosystem services like pollination. In this sense, orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) are essential pollinators in Neotropical ecosystems and could serve as excellent model organisms for studying whether potential effects of urbanization on morphology compromise specialized pollination services. In this study, we sampled orchid bee communities across 14 sites representing an urbanization gradient in a Neotropical city surrounded by cloud forest in Mexico. We estimated urbanization using satellite imagery, assessed a set of morphometric measurements in the five most abundant orchid bee species, and quantified pollination of Gongora galeata (Orchidaceae), a specialized orchid that is exclusively pollinated by Euglossa obrima. Whitin the euglossine assemblage, urbanization was associated with smaller body sizes (i.e. head width) and higher wing asymmetry, revealing developmental stress. In the case of E. obrima, wing asymmetry was associated with lower pollination probability of G. galeata. These findings suggest that urbanization drives morphological variation in orchid bees, and provide novel evidence that these changes may have consequences for orchid pollination, a fundamental ecosystem service provided by these specialized Neotropical bees.