Quarries as stepping stones and corridors for bees and wasps

Our aim is to provide an inventory of the bees and wasps as well as their feeding and breeding habitats in the quarry of Wiepenkathen. In order to register all species, the inventory will take place during the period of flight from February to August. The relevance of quarries as stepping stones and corridors for these important ecosystem service providers is given because of suitable feeding and breeding habitats (surrounded by intensive agriculture landscape) and will be evaluated. Within the regional context of the red list of bees in Hamburg that will be published in 2020 and by taking into account possible migration routes along suitable habitats downstream of the Elbe river, it is likely that the quarry Wiepenkathen not only is a connecting habitat but also a hotspot for bees and wasps in the region. Possible improvements of the availability of food resources (e.g. by sowing additional flower strips) and breeding sites (e.g. installing additional bee nests, vertical banks, bare ground) will be evaluated, and management recommendations with regard to the species that profit from these activities will be given. By involving biology students and future teacher students we will train experts for species identification and multipliers. The results and recommendations will give scientific proof of the species richness of bees and wasps in quarries as an anthropogenic formed habitat and show their importance as biodiversity hotspots.