Metadata for the paper titled: Bumblebee queen mortality and behaviour along roads with varying traffic and road verges with contrasting flowering plant diversity
Summary
This publication makes part of the research project GINFRA – green rights-of-way infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem services. The aim of the project is to quantify whether linear infrastructure habitats (road verges, power line corridors, etc) support biodiversity by assessing the influence of the amount of these habitats in the landscape, their contribution to landscape connectivity and population persistence.
The linked data was collected by surveying bumblebee queens during the spring and late summer in 20 sites in Uppland, Sweden. The sites were paired such that half of them had a high flowering plant diversity in the road verge and a gradient in traffic intensity from ~100 to ~6000 vehicles per day, and the other half had a similar gradient in traffic intensity but low flowering plant diversity in the road verge (i.e. regular grass dominated road verges). The observed walked a 2 km transect (1 km in each side of the road) and recorded all dead and alive bumblebee queens. The data set consists of 403 observations. Each observation corresponds to an observed bumblebee queen, whether they were found dead or alive and what behaviour they presented when observed. The data was gathered in 4 visits, 2 in spring and 2 in the late summer. Weather information is also present in the dataset, as well as information regarding the average width of the road verge.

Sammanfattning på Svenska
Denna publikation är en del av projektet GINFRA – green rights-of-way infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Projektets huvudsyfte var att kvantifiera om linjära infrastrukturmiljöer (såsom vägkanter och kraftledningsgator) bidrar till mångfalden av växter och insekter i olika rumsliga skalor. Detta gjordes genom att uppskatta hur linjära infrastrukturmiljöers mängd i landskapet bidrar till mångfalden samt hur mycket de bidrar till landskapets konnektivitet och överlevnad av populationer. 

Datan samlades in genom inventeringen av humledrottningar på 20 lokaler i Uppland, Sverige under våren som sensommaren 2020. Lokalerna parades så att hälften av dem var artrika vägkanter som hade en gradient i trafikintensitet från ~100 till ~6000 fordon per dag, och den andra hälften hade en liknande gradient i trafikintensitet men hade artfattiga eller gräsdominerande vägkanter. Inventeraren gick en 2 km lång transekt (1 km på varje sida av vägen) och registrerade alla döda och levande humledrottningar. Datauppsättningen består av 403 observationer. Varje observation motsvarar en observerad humledrottning, om de hittades döda eller levande och vilket beteende de uppvisade när de observerades. Datan samlades in vid 4 besök, 2 på våren och 2 på sensommaren. Väderinformation finns också i datasetet, liksom information om vägkantens genomsnittliga bredd.
Site: Contains the name of each of the 20 sites.
Sampling season: Refers to whether the queen was observed during spring or the late summer. 
Visit: Each site was visited twice in each season. This field contains information on whether the queen was observed during the first or the second visit (spring), or during the third of fourth visit (late summer). 
Traffic: Contains the estimate for average daily traffic for each road. This data was retrieved from the Swedish National Road Database (Swedish name in the database: ÅDT, which is an abbreviation for årsmedeldygnstrafik).
Road verge: Contains the classification of the road verge based on the flowering plant species diversity and flower density estimates. A road verge could either be SR (species rich) or SP (species poor). Species rich road verges were identified using the Swedish National Road Database (NVDB), and their status was confirmed in the field by placing 6 quadratic sample plots in each site in which each plant species was identified and all flowers or equivalent units were counted. Sites that had road verges mostly dominated by grasses and were not in the NVDB as species rich were classified as species poor. 
Verge.width: Contains information about the mean road width (meters) for each site. Observe that these values are an overall average of the road width at the site level, and thus combines both sides of the road. 
Date: Date the queen was observed.
Time: Time of the day when the queen was observed. 24-hour format.
Temperature: Temperature in degrees Celsius when the queen was observed.
Weather: Short description of the weather when the queen was observed.
Species: Describes the species to which the observed queen belonged. 
Behaviour: Describes what the observed queen was doing or if it was observed dead.