Abstract
BackgroundHere we present preliminary results from the first three years of a long-term bee survey conducted at a 3,840-ha private conservation property in the northern Sapphire Mountains and Bitterroot River Valley, and a pilot study at an associated 80-ha property in the Swan River Valley, Missoula County, Montana, USA. The survey includes hand-net, bowl-trap, and blue-vane trap collections. The resulting checklist comprises 229 bee species and morphospecies within 5 families, 38 genera and 91 subgenera. Of the total species in the list, 34 of them represent first state records Montana. This survey expands the number of bee species recorded in Montana to 366. Included in these species is Megachile (Eutricharaea) apicalis Spinola, showing a range expansion for this introduced bee.New informationWe present new distributional records for 34 bee species, including Megachile (Eutricharaea) apicalis Spinola, an introduced bee that was discovered to be resident in North America in 1984 in Santa Barbara County, California. This species has since expanded its range in the across the west, but had not been previously recorded in Montana.
Highlights
Wild bees play a vital role as pollinators in both agricultural and natural systems, and may be important to the success of habitat restoration projects (Menz et al 2011, Williams 2011)
We present new distributional records for 34 bee species, including Megachile (Eutricharaea) apicalis Spinola, an introduced bee that was discovered to be resident in North America in 1984 in Santa Barbara County, California
We captured bees from MPG Ranch using the protocol outlined in A Standardized Method for Monitoring Bee Populations: The Bee Inventory (BI) Plot (LeBuhn et al 2003), modified by reducing the amount of time spent netting from 60 minutes to 30 minutes
Summary
We present preliminary results from the first three years of a long-term bee survey conducted at a 3,840-ha private conservation property in the northern Sapphire Mountains and Bitterroot River Valley, and a pilot study at an associated 80-ha property in the Swan River Valley, Missoula County, Montana, USA. Of the total species in the list, 34 of them represent first state records Montana This survey expands the number of bee species recorded in Montana to 366. Included in these species is Megachile (Eutricharaea)) apicalis Spinola, showing a range expansion for this introduced bee. We present new distributional records for 34 bee species, including Megachile (Eutricharaea) apicalis Spinola, an introduced bee that was discovered to be resident in North America in 1984 in Santa Barbara County, California. Hymenoptera, biodiversity, pollinator, native species, invasive species, adventive, range expansion, introduced, Megachile apicalis, North America, Intermountain West
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