It’s not just rabbits and humans doing it, new research suggests the UK’s bee populations are thriving in urban habitats.

Urban environments might not initially seem like the best habitat for pollinators, but collaborative research from a number of UK universities suggests bees and other pollinating bugs actually thrive as well in towns and cities as they do on from a farms and in nature reserves. In fact, the diversity of bee species was found to be higher in towns than on farmland.

The study, published this week, is the first to compare the suitability of different landscapes for pollinating insects.

Bees, which play a vital role in pollinating some of the UK's most important crops, have been declining in recent years, if some species are urbanising, the effects of this shift are still poorly understood.

Researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading found that, though bee species were more diverse in urban areas, the number of bees was the same across the areas studied (urban areas, farmland and nature reserves.) They also found that while hoverfly abundance was higher in farmland and nature reserves than urban sites, overall pollinator diversity did not differ significantly.

Lead researcher Dr Katherine Baldock, of the University of Bristol, said, "Bees are driven by the availability of food and suitable nesting sites. We found that there were equivalent numbers of bees in the three landscapes studied. In urban areas pollinators foraged on a wide variety of plant species, including many non-native garden plants, but visited a smaller proportion of the available plant species than those in other landscapes. This could be explained by the high diversity of plant species in urban areas."

The team found a higher number of rarer species living in the countryside (11, compared to four in urban landscapes). they said their findings have important implications for pollinator conservation, as urban areas in the UK continue to increase in size. They said that, based on their findings, they can recommend that provisions for pollinators in urban landscapes form part of any national strategy to conserve and restore pollinators.

Professor Jane Memmott, University of Bristol, added, "Insect pollination has been valued at around £690M per year for UK crop production and many of these urban bees are essential for pollinating some of the fruits and vegetables which are grown in gardens and allotments. The findings offer incentives for policy makers to improve the quality of existing green spaces in urban areas, as urban habitats can contain remarkably high pollinator species richness."