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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Reno, Nevada » Great Basin Rangelands Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #432940
Research Project: Development of Ecological Strategies for Invasive Plant Management and Rehabilitation of Western Rangelands

Location: Great Basin Rangelands Research

Title: How are our native bees responding to Rangeland restoration?

Author
item Tonkel, Kirk
item Harmon, Daniel
item Clements, Darin

Submitted to: Popular Publication
Publication Type: Popular Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/3/2026
Publication Date: 3/9/2026
Citation: Tonkel, K.C., Harmon, D.N., Clements, D.D. 2026. How are our native bees responding to Rangeland restoration?. Progressive Rancher. 26(3):31-33.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The Great Basin Desert, with its’ characteristic plants and animals, is big - at roughly 200,000 square miles it approaches in size the entire country of France. This large region in the Intermountain West, with its vast areas of rangelands, is increasingly threatened by the degrading forces of invasive plants and altered fire regimes. The overwhelming task of restoring these degraded habitats involves an integrated approach to combat these threats. One management tactic the USDA Agricultural Research Service – Great Basin Rangelands Research Unit (GBRRU) in Reno, Nevada involves the use of pre-emergent herbicides to reduce weed competition, primarily cheatgrass, coupled with reseeding to establish desirable perennial plant species. These seed mixes used in reseeding efforts attempt to restore perennial plant communities, reduce wildfire threats and provide natural resources for wildlife and livestock. In Great Basin Desert rangelands, bees are important pollinators for forbs and a variety of woody plants. We began inventorying bees in the spring of 2025 at two locations in northern Nevada currently undergoing research restoration efforts. These baseline inventory results will provide valuable information for monitoring efforts and inform similar research projects at other rangeland restoration sites in the Great Basin. In addition, we hope to improve pollinator recruitment by using this bee inventory data to inform seed mix species composition for future reseeding efforts. Preliminary results indicate that over 100 species of bees and thousands of individuals were collected from the two sampling locations over the entire sampling period. Species collected were from five separate bee families and 28 genera. Having baseline data at all stages of restoration and long-term monitoring programs is critical to gain insight into how these bee communities respond to landscape changes.