Bee Fauna Research Articles

Taxonomic Impediment for Conservation: The Case of Bees in an Undersampled Tropical Mid-Elevation Site, San Martín, Peru.

In this first field survey of an entire bee fauna for any part of Peru, we report a total of 1796 bees belonging to 181 species or morphospecies in four families. The taxonomic impediment was pronounced with only 80 species of 181 that could be named. With such a high proportion of undetermined species, it is not possible to adequately compare pollinator communities across different studies, assess historical changes or analyze endemism patterns to document ecology, behavior and evolution of the species and genera. This information is required to provide a sound basis for policymakers to protect habitats for the conservation of native pollinators.

A first revision of the Andrena of Iraq (Hymenoptera, Andrenidae), with the description of two new species from Iraqi Kurdistan and additional records from surrounding countries.

Iraq is a large country in the Middle East region that borders both Turkey and Iran, countries known to host two of the largest bee faunas globally, as expected for a group of insects that favour dry to Mediterranean climates. Despite this huge regional species richness, the bee fauna of Iraq is chronically understudied and poorly known, both in relative and absolute terms. This is true for the hyper-speciose bee genus Andrena, for which only 17 species have been previously published for Iraq. This work is the first modern contribution to the revision of the Andrena fauna of Iraq. Based on new specimen collections in Duhok Governorate (Iraqi Kurdistan) during 2023, a revised total of 59 Andrena species for Iraq (42 species recorded for the first time) is presented, including the description of two new species: Andrena (Aciandrena) duhokensis Wood, sp. nov. and Andrena (Notandrena) baiocchii Wood, sp. nov. The unknown males of A. (Micrandrena) elam Wood, 2022, A. (Micrandrena) obsidiana Wood, 2022, and A. (Notandrena) ayna Wood, 2023 are described. Andrenabakrajoensis Amin & Mawlood, 2019, syn. nov. is synonymised with A. (Holandrena) variabilis Smith, 1853. Additional records are presented from nearby Middle Eastern countries, particularly Lebanon. These results highlight the fundamentally understudied nature of the Iraqi Andrena fauna.

Larger cities host richer bee faunas, but are no refuge for species with concerning conservation status: Empirical evidence from Western Europe

In the context of worldwide biodiversity and wild bee decline, it is increasingly important to better understand the effect of land-use changes on wild bee communities at a global scale. To do so, we studied the effect of city area and urban green spaces layout on wild bee species richness and community composition, as well as on wild bee species with an unfavorable UICN conservation status. This study was based on a large European dataset encompassing 20 cities from France, Belgium and Switzerland. We found a mean wild bee species richness in cities of 96 ± 48 (SD), showing that this species richness was highly variable among cities. The main factor positively influencing wild bee species richness in cities was the area of the city. Conversely, species richness was not significantly related to the total area of urban green spaces in a given city, measured as the spatial extent of urban parks, wastelands and other semi-natural habitats, excluding urban private gardens. Species with conservation status were quite scarce in urban environments, especially when compared to the European Red List of Bees, and we could not link their presence to either city or urban green space area. Dissimilarities in wild bee species community compositions were not associated with any of the studied characteristics of cities. We found that the dissimilarity of wild bee community composition among cities was mainly driven by the rarest species, as the most common ones were found in a majority of the cities sampled. Overall, these results emphasize that larger cities host more wild bee species, but are no refuge for the ones with concerning conservation status. Thus, stakeholders are encouraged to design their cities in favor of biodiversity to better support wild bee communities, and perhaps mitigate the established effect of the urban ecological filter.

New knowledge about Megachilidae and Halictidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) fauna from Diyarbakır and Bingöl provinces

The data about the bee fauna of Diyarbakır and Bingöl provinces of eastern Türkiye is quite limited. This study was conducted between 2016 and 2017 to determine Megachilidae and Halictidae (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) bee diversity of these two provinces. Adult samples were collected by atrap and killed with ethyl acetate. As a result of the evaluation of the collected bee samples, a total of 28 species (17 species from Megachilidae family and 11 species from Halictidae family) were identified from these provinces. Four species of them are known as cleptoparasites. In terms of the plant-bee relationship, eighteen of the species identified are polylectic, while five are oligolectic. Collection localities of all identified species were provided. With the current study, the number of known species belonging to the Megachilidae and Halictidae fauna of both provinces increased from 45 to 65.

Standardized transect walks outperform pan traps in assessing wild bee community in a Mediterranean protected area (Asinara National Park, Italy)

The decline of pollinator insects in various parts of the world has increased the interest in studies on bee sampling. Because pollinator management and conservation policies depend on data representing their communities, knowledge of the systematic bias of sampling methods in relation to surrounding habitat is fundamental. This study examined the performance of standardized transect walks and colored pan traps considering differences in bee species richness, diversity, and composition, and the potential bias due to a different availability of floral sources throughout seasons. The study was conducted in a minor outlying island (Asinara, Italy), a natural park characterized by the prevalence of natural or semi-natural habitats and an Oceanic Pluviseasonal Mediterranean bioclimate. We found that transect and pan trap methods reflected different bee communities based on taxonomic families, genera, and species. In general, the transect method captured more varied samples than pan traps, despite the significantly lower number of individuals captured on transects. Moreover, pan traps captured more bees as floral abundance decreased, whereas transects showed greater bee abundance, richness, and diversity with increasing floral resource availability. In addition, 18 species out of the 68 observed in total were caught exclusively with pan traps, especially in July–October, when transect catches decreased due to substantial bloom reduction. Therefore, alternating the two methods according to season (i.e., transect in late winter-spring and pan trap in summer-autumn) might be the most suitable trade-off to obtain a better representation of the bee community by limiting sampling efforts and the negative impact on bee fauna.

Heat resistance variability in the Lebanese bee fauna

Heat resistance variability in the Lebanese bee fauna

Ecological amplitude and indication potential of mining bees (Andrena spp.): a case study from the post-agricultural area of the Kampinos National Park (Poland)

The mining bee (Andrena spp.) play a key role in ensuring plant and animal diversity. The present study examines their diversity in a post-agricultural landscape exemplified by the Kampinos National Park (KNP), a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Poland. The following hypotheses were addressed: (H1) the mining bees demonstrate a narrow ecological amplitude, (H2) there are no indicator species for particular habitats, and (H3) the studied mining bees have the same ecological preferences to those presented in the literature. A total of 40 catch per unit effort samples (CPUE) were collected across various habitats with different soil humidity. Forty-six species were recorded, representing 46% of mining bees and approximately 10% of the known Polish bee fauna. Nineteen of the recorded species (41%) were assigned to CR-NT threat categories, indicating that the national park plays a significant role in preserving mining bee species diversity and their conservation. None of the hypotheses (H1, H2, H3) were confirmed. The mining bees were found to demonstrate a wide ecological amplitude. Surprisingly, habitats located in dry and wet soils were both characterised by high abundance and species richness. Seventeen indicators were distinguished among the dominant and rarer species. Our findings suggest that Andrena nigroaenea and A. ventralis (lower humidity), as well as A. alfkenella and A. minutuloides (higher humidity), have different significant relationships with habitat soil humidity to those reported in the literature.

Bee Pollinators of Feed Crops of Ganja-Dashkesan Economic Region of Azerbaijan

As a result of the study of bee pollinators of forage plants in the Ganja-Dashkesan economic region, 128 species of bees belonging to 6 families and 32 genera were identified. The first bees appear in mid-March in low-lying semi-deserts and foothill steppes up to altitudes of no more than 400 m above sea level (10 species from the families Megachilidae, Andrenidae and Apidae) Since April, a lot of spring species appear (40 species from the families Megachilidae, Andrenidae, Apidae, Melittidae and Halictidae). In May, the bee fauna changes dramatically both quantitatively and qualitatively. 82 species of bees already fly. In June, the largest number of bee species fly (91 species). The second month of summer, July, is characterized by a slightly smaller number of species of flying bees (88 species). This is explained, first of all, by a decrease in the food supply, i. e. flowering vegetation, which is richest in spring and early summer — June. The last month of summer, August, is characterized by an even greater decrease in bee species — 62. Since the beginning of autumn, in September, the number of flying species has sharply decreased (22 species). Only bees of the Hylaeusand Bombus genera retain a high number of species. In October, the number of bee species naturally becomes almost half as small (10 species). The species composition and abundance of forage pollinators changes throughout the season. For example, in the phase of the first flowering (late May – early June), bees of the genera Andrena, Eucera, Megachile are found in alfalfa fields, and in July-August, before the second cutting, an increase in the number of bees Halictus and Bombus was noted. Effective pollinators of forage plants of economic importance — oligotrophs on legumes Melitta leporina, Nomia diversipes, polytrophic species Andrena carbonaria, A. ovatula, Melitturga clavicornis, Halictus tetrazonius, Lasioglossum leucozonium, Megachile centuncularis, Osmia coerulescens, Eucera clypeata, Xylocopa violacea, Bombus lucorum and others. These species accounted for 60% of the bees in the alfalfa plots.

Annotated checklist of the megachilid bees of Corsica (Hymenoptera, Megachilidae)

Corsica stands as one of the largest Mediterranean Islands and has been the exploration ground for renowned entomologists like Charles Ferton. However, no synthesis on Corsican bees has been published so far. To fill this gap in knowledge, we propose an overview of the megachilid bee fauna of the island based on fieldwork, a thorough examination of material housed at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN, Paris), data compilation from various collections and a comprehensive review of existing literature. We reviewed 5,886 specimens and we extracted 279 additional data from literature sources. These data confirm the presence in Corsica of 91 species of which two are endemic, including Hoplitis corsaria (Warncke, 1991) which is elevated to species rank stat. nov. One new synonymy is established: Megachile lucidifrons Ferton, syn. nov. of Megachile albocristata Smith, 1853. The presence in Corsica of 19 species is regarded as dubious or erroneous. Finally, the types of Megachilid bees housed at MNHN and described based on Corsican material are illustrated. Lectotypes are designated for Megachile sicula var. corsica Benoist, 1935, Osmia corsica Ferton, 1901, Osmia erythrogastra Ferton, 1905, Osmia lanosa Pérez, 1879, and Osmia lineola Pérez, 1895.

The potential of iNaturalist for bee conservation research—A study case in a southern Brazilian metropolis

Abstract Citizen science can expand our knowledge of biodiversity and enhance conservation programs by adding species records and associated data. This is the case for bees—the main group of pollinators—with millions of observations on iNaturalist. Here we ask if spontaneous observations made by citizen scientists on this platform provide a good picture of bee diversity in terms of taxonomic coverage (i.e., proportion of different subfamilies, tribes, genera and species), identification acuity (i.e., correct identification and at what taxonomic level) and taxonomic diversity. For this purpose, we compare iNaturalist observations with a dataset from a structured local survey for Curitiba, a city of 2 million inhabitants in southern Brazil. The search on iNaturalist resulted in 496 bee observations of 52 species, a richness similar to the most urbanised sampling site from the local survey. Highly eusocial and large bees are, proportionally, more frequently observed by citizens than sampled by professionals. Three citizen observers were responsible for more than 50% of the observations in iNaturalist. About 45% of species were correctly identified and this number increased up to 85% after our validation. We perceive that the spontaneous, non‐structured, observations on iNaturalist bring a biased representation of the bee fauna when compared to the structured local survey. However, the platform shows a great potential to monitor large bodied and eusocial bees, including rare and non‐native species; thus, it may be valuable for bee surveying, monitoring and conservation.

Exploring the hidden riches: Recent remarkable faunistic records and range extensions in the bee fauna of Italy (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Anthophila).

The area sourrounding the Mediterranean basin is recognised as a major biodiversity hotspot for bees, and Italy is amongst the European countries with the highest bee species richness. Detailed knowledge of bee distribution is crucial for understanding bee biology and designing tailored conservation strategies, but is still insufficient in southern European countries, especially in Italy. We report recent finds of 48 bee species that yield significant novelties for the Italian bee fauna. Eight species, namely Andrenaconfinis Stöckhert, Anthidiellumbreviusculum Pérez, Coelioxysalatus Foerster, Lasioglossumalgericolellum Strand, Megachilelapponica Thomson, Megachileopacifrons Pérez, Megachilesemicircularis auct. nec Zanden and Trachusaintegra Eversmann are reported as new for Italy. In addition, Andrenabinominata Smith, Andrenacompta Lepeletier, Colletesacutus Pérez, Lasioglossumstrictifrons Vachal, Rhodanthidiumsiculum Spinola and Rhodanthidiumsticticum Fabricius are newly recorded from mainland Italy, Osmiaheteracantha Pérez from Sardegna and Nomadaflavopicta Kirby from Sicilia. We also report significant range extensions for other bee species and recent records of species that had long gone unrecorded in Italy. The combination of morphology and DNA barcoding provided reliable identifications even for the most challenging specimens. As several of our records come from areas neglected by bee experts in the past, this study stands out as a key indicator of a bee faunistic richness still awaiting discovery and hopefully it will stimulate the interest of taxonomists and stakeholders in pursuing bee research in Italy in the near future.

The Bee Communities of Young Living Lavender Farm, Mona, Utah, USA

It is now widely recognized that bees are among the most important pollinators worldwide, yet the bee faunas of many regions and habitats remain inadequately documented. The Great Basin Desert in North America is thought to host some of the richest bee communities in the world, as indicated by several studies documenting diverse bee faunas in the region’s natural habitats. However, limited attention has been given to the bee communities present on agricultural lands within the Great Basin Desert. Here, we describe a rich bee community housed at the Young Living Lavender Farm in Juab County, Utah, near the eastern edge of the Great Basin Desert. Our survey of bees on this farm identified 68 bee species across 22 genera. This represents 34% of the bee species known from the county, including 34 new county records. Among the numerous flower species cultivated at the farm, we found that lavender supported the richest bee community, with 32 species collected from cultivated lavender fields. While lavender is frequently recommended for homeowners to plant in support of pollinators, our study is among the first to provide a list of bee species that visit lavender in western North America. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that agricultural lands, particularly those implementing pollinator-friendly farming practices, can support rich bee communities in the Great Basin Desert.

Fine‐scale bee species distribution models: Hotspots of richness and endemism in South Africa with species‐area comparisons

Abstract While global patterns of bee diversity have been modelled, our understanding of fine‐scale regional patterns is more limited, particularly for under‐sampled regions such as Africa. South Africa is among the exceptions on the African continent; its bee fauna (ca. 1253 species) has been well collected and documented, including mass digitising of its natural history collections. It is a region with high floral diversity, high habitat heterogeneity and variable rainfall seasonality. Here, we combine a South African bee species distributional database (877 bee species) with a geospatial modelling approach to determine fine‐scale (~11 × 11 km grid cell resolution) hotspots of bee species richness, endemism and range‐restricted species. Our analyses, based on the probabilities of occurrence surfaces for each species across 108,803 two‐minute grid cells, reveal three bee hotspots of richness: Winter rainfall, Aseasonal rainfall and Early‐to‐late summer rainfall. These hotspots contain large numbers of endemic and geographically restricted taxa. Hotspots with particularly high bee diversity include the Fynbos, Succulent Karoo and Desert biomes; the latter showing 6–20 times more species per unit area than other biomes. Our results conform with global species‐area patterns: areas of higher‐than‐expected bee density are largely concentrated in Mediterranean and arid habitats. This study further enhances our knowledge in identifying regional and global hotspots of richness and endemism for a keystone group of insects and enabling these to be accounted for when setting conservation priorities.

The Megachilidae (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Apiformes) of the Democratic Republic of Congo curated at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA, Belgium).

Natural history collections are a cornerstone of entomology, and the conservation of specimens is the essential prerequisite for the development of research into systematics, biogeography, ecology, evolution and other disciplines. Yet, specimens collected during decades of entomological research conducted in less developed countries across Sub-Saharan Africa on pests, beneficial insects and insect biodiversity in general have largely been exported to be permanently preserved in developed countries, mainly in Europe and the United States of America. This is particularly true for the Democratic Republic of the Congos (DRC) diverse wild bee fauna, which has been investigated throughout the colonial period by visiting or resident entomologists and missionaries who have then transferred their collected material primarily to Belgium as part of a wider legacy of scientific exploration and colonialism. Digitizing NHC is one way to mitigate this current bias, by making samples accessible to researchers from the target post-colonial countries as well as to the wider international scientific community. In this study, we compiled and digitized 6,490 specimens records relevant to 195 wild bee species grouped in 18 genera within the biodiverse family Megachilidae, essentially from the colonial era (i.e., mostly between 19051960, with additional records up to 1978), and curated at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium. We provide a detailed catalogue of all records with updated locality and province names, including 29 species only available as type specimens. We also explore the historical patterns of diversity and distribution across DRC, and we provide a list of the research entomologists involved. This study is an important first step that uses digital technologies to democratize and repatriate important aspects of DRCs natural heritage of insect biodiversity, to stimulate more contemporary field surveys and modern taxonomic revisions, as well as to identify and characterize research gaps and biodiversity shortfalls in some of the less-explored regions of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sensitivity of the Neotropical Solitary Bee Centris analis F. (Hymenoptera, Apidae) to the Reference Insecticide Dimethoate for Pesticide Risk Assessment.

Currently, only Apis mellifera is used in environmental regulation to evaluate the hazard of pesticides to pollinators. The low representativeness of pollinators and bee diversity in this approach may result in insufficient protection for the wild species. This scenario is intensified in tropical environments, where little is known about the effects of pesticides on solitary bees. We aimed to calculate the medium lethal dose (LD50) and medium lethal concentration (LC50) of the insecticide dimethoate in the Neotropical solitary bee Centris analis, a cavity-nesting, oil-collecting bee distributed from Brazil to Mexico. Males and females of C. analis were exposed orally to dimethoate for 48 h under laboratory conditions. Lethality was assessed every 24 h until 144 h after the beginning of the test. After the LD50 calculation, we compared the value with available LD50 values in the literature of other bee species using the species sensitivity distribution curve. In 48 h of exposure, males showed an LD50 value 1.33 times lower than females (32.78 and 43.84 ng active ingredient/bee, respectively). Centris analis was more sensitive to dimethoate than the model species A. mellifera and the solitary bee from temperate zones, Osmia lignaria. However, on a body weight basis, C. analis and A. mellifera had similar LD50 values. Ours is the first study that calculated an LD50 for a Neotropical solitary bee. Besides, the results are of crucial importance for a better understanding of the effects of pesticides on the tropical bee fauna and will help to improve the risk assessment of pesticides to bees under tropical conditions, giving attention to wild species, which are commonly neglected. Environ Toxicol Chem 2023;42:2758-2767. © 2023 SETAC.

The new annotated checklist of the wild bees of Europe (Hymenoptera: Anthophila).

At a time when nature conservation has become essential to ensure the long-term sustainability of our environment, it is widely acknowledged that conservation actions must be implemented within a solid taxonomic framework. In preparation for the upcoming update of the IUCN Red List, we here update the European checklist of the wild bees (sensu the IUCN geographical framework). The original checklist, published in 2014, was revised for the first time in 2017. In the present revision, we add one genus, four subgenera and 67 species recently described, 40 species newly recorded since the latest revision (including two species that are not native to Europe), 26 species overlooked in the previous European checklists and 63 published synonymies. We provide original records for eight species previously unknown to the continent and, as original taxonomic acts, we provide three new synonyms, we consider two names as nomina nuda, ten names as nomina dubia, three as species inquirenda, synonymize three species and exclude 40 species from the previous checklist. Around a hundred other taxonomic changes and clarifications are also included and discussed. The present work revises the total number of genera for IUCN Europe to 77 and the total number of species to 2,138. In addition to specifying the taxonomic changes necessary to update the forthcoming Red List of European bees, we discuss the sampling and taxonomic biases that characterise research on the European bee fauna and highlight the growing importance of range expansions and species invasions.

Checklist of the bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) of New Caledonia.

In a world where insects and notably bees are declining, assessing their distribution over time and space is crucial to evaluate species status and highlight conservation priorities. However, this can be a daunting task, especially in areas such as tropical oceanic islands where exhaustive samplings over time have been lacking. This is the case in New Caledonia, an archipelago located in the southwest Pacific. Historical records of bee species are piecemeal and, although contemporary samplings have significantly advanced our knowledge of the bee fauna of New Caledonia, the status of several species remains to be elucidated. Here, we provide an updated checklist of the 51 bee species recorded for New Caledonia using previous publications and personal samplings. We documented their distribution, origin (i.e. endemic, native or alien) and the year and location of their occurrences. Based on the year of their first capture and the year of their last capture, we determined an occurrence status for each species. Thus, 10 years after the last checklist of the New Caledonian bee fauna, the literature review and recent samplings allowed us to add six new species to the list. Half of them are recently introduced species including one firstly mentioned in this paper (i.e. Hylaeusalbonitens). We consider here that 30 species are effectively present on the territory and the presence of 21 species could not be determined due to a lack of data, which highlights the need to increase sampling efforts across New Caledonia. Given the difficulty of exhaustively sampling the entire archipelago, we would recommend taking, as a starting point, altitude environments and areas where data-deficient species were captured. In a broader perspective, biomolecular analyses are crucial to confirm species identifications. This is also needed to make comparisons between archipelagoes and thus clarify the distribution and status of species at the scale of the southwest Pacific.

An elevational gradient in floral traits and pollinator assemblages in the Neotropical species Costus guanaiensis var. tarmicus in Peru.

Different populations of plant species can adapt to their local pollinators and diverge in floral traits accordingly. Floral traits are subject to pollinator-driven natural selection to enhance plant reproductive success. Studies on temperate plant systems have shown pollinator-driven selection results in floral trait variation along elevational gradients, but studies in tropical systems are lacking. We analyzed floral traits and pollinator assemblages in the Neotropical bee-pollinated taxon Costus guanaiensis var. tarmicus across four sites along a steep elevational gradient in Peru. We found variations in floral traits of size, color, and reward, and in the pollinator assemblage along the elevational gradient. We examined our results considering two hypotheses, (1) local adaptation to different bee assemblages, and (2) the early stages of an evolutionary shift to a new pollinator functional group (hummingbirds). We found some evidence consistent with the adaptation of C. guanaiensis var. tarmicus to the local bee fauna along the studied elevational gradient. Corolla width across sites was associated with bee thorax width of the local most frequent pollinator. However, we could not rule out the possibility of the beginning of a bee-to-hummingbird pollination shift in the highest-studied site. Our study is one of the few geographic-scale analyses of floral trait and pollinator assemblage variation in tropical plant species. Our results broaden our understanding of plant-pollinator interactions beyond temperate systems by showing substantial intraspecific divergence in both floral traits and pollinator assemblages across geographic space in a tropical plant species.

A checklist of the bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) of Minnesota.

Research studies and conservation actions aimed at improving conditions for bees require a basic understanding of which species are present in a given region. The US state of Minnesota occupies a unique geographic position at the confluence of eastern deciduous forests, northern boreal forests, and western tallgrass prairie, which has led to a diverse and unique bee fauna. In recent years there have been multiple ongoing bee-focused inventory and research projects in Minnesota. Combined with the historic specimens housed in the University of Minnesota Insect Collection and other regional collections, these furnished a wealth of specimens available to form the basis of a statewide checklist. Here, we present the first comprehensive checklist of Minnesota bee species, documenting a total of 508 species in 45 genera. County-level occurrence data is included for each species, and further information on distribution and rarity is included for species of regional or national interest. Some species have their taxonomy clarified, with Perdita citrinella Graenicher, 1910 syn. nov. recognized as a junior synonym of Perdita perpallida Cockerell, 1901, P. bequaerti syn. nov. recognized as a junior synonym of P. pallidipennis Graenicher, 1910 stat. nov., Anthidiellum boreale (Robertson, 1902) stat. nov. recognized as a full species, and Anthidiellium beijingense Portman & Ascher nom. nov. is proposed for A. boreale Wu to resolve the homonymy with A. boreale (Robertson). We further include a list of species that may occur in Minnesota and highlight 11 species occurring in the state that are considered non-native. Recent collecting efforts, as well as increased taxonomic attention paid to Minnesota bees, have resulted in 66 species that have only been documented in the last 10 years. As a first step in determining native bees of conservation concern, we document 38 species that have not been detected in the state during the last 50 years and discuss their conservation status, along with other species for which evidence of decline exists. The checklist of Minnesota bees will continue to grow and change with additional surveys and research studies. In particular, recent surveys have continued to detect new bee species, and many bee groups are in need of taxonomic revision, with the most recent revisions for many genera occurring decades ago. Overall, this checklist strengthens our understanding of the bees of Minnesota and the broader region, informs conservation assessments, and establishes a baseline for faunal change.

Long-term changes in the composition and distribution of the Hungarian bumble bee fauna (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Bombus)

One of the most important pollinator taxa is Bombus (Hymenoptera, Apidae), the genus of bumble bees, since they are important, often specialized, pollinators of many plants. As a result of climate change, warming winters and changes in landscape structure, the distribution and frequency of Bombus species is constantly changing. To develop appropriate protection strategies, it is essential to monitor them and update the occurrence and threat status of the species. The last review of the distribution of Bombus species in Hungary was completed 20 years ago. Here we present updated distribution maps based on published data from the last 20 years together with unpublished data collected in 2018–2021. Based on the new data, we examine changes in the last two decades. In the case of 9 species further studies should be carried out to confirm the presence of stable populations, while 3 species are recommended for protection by law in Hungary. Seven species showed increasing frequency, B. argillaceus and B. haematurus.