BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Ecol. Evol.
Sec. Conservation and Restoration Ecology
This article is part of the Research TopicThe North American Bison Management System: Sustainability, One Health, Ecological Restoration, and Ecological ResilienceView all 3 articles
Bison wallowing alters pollinator nesting and foraging resources in shortgrass sagebrush steppe in the Northern Great Plains
Provisionally accepted
- 1United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory, Sidney, Montana, United States
- 2Missouri Department of Conservation, Columbia, Missouri, United States
- 3University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, United States
- 4Saint Louis Zoo, St. Louis, United States
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Bison were historically a dominant large grazer in the Great Plains but were extirpated from much of their historic range. From reintroduction efforts, we understand bison and their associated activities have keystone effects on plants and wildlife in bison-grazed areas. Wallowing, a unique behavior of bison in which they repeatedly roll on the ground and create bare depressions, may influence nesting resources of important ground-nesting pollinators (bees and wasps) but how wallowing affects ground-nesting pollinators and other insects is not well-understood. Our broad objectives were to identify ground-nesting insects using wallows as nesting sites in north-central Montana and to understand the ecological interactions associated with bison-specific disturbances to the landscape. For our field study, we used emergence traps and sweep netting surveys to compare wallow and non-wallow prairie sites to determine differences of ground-nesting bee and wasp richness and abundance. Additionally, we surveyed surrounding vegetation communities and soil compaction at wallow and non-wallow sites. Our collections of 52 taxa were dominated by various wasp families (Mutillidae, Chrysididae, Crabronidae, Pompilidae), with few bees. Overall, we found higher abundance and taxonomic richness of ground-nesting pollinators emerging from within our adjacent prairie sites compared to within wallows. Vegetation surveys revealed distinct plant communities around bison wallows compared to adjacent prairie sites, with the most common forbs being non-native species. These data increase our knowledge of bison-engineered ecological interactions and how bison reintroductions might influence ground-nesting insects such as bees and wasps within the shortgrass prairie/sagebrush steppe ecosystem of the Northern Great Plains.
Keywords: Pollinators, Mutillidae, bison wallows, Northern Great Plains, Emergence traps, ground-nesting wasps
Received: 14 Jul 2025; Accepted: 29 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Campbell, Pei, Morphew, Brabant and Spevak. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Joshua Campbell, joshua.campbell@usda.gov
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