Abstract

Bees are a diverse group with more than 1000 species known from the Iberian Peninsula. They have increasingly received special attention due to their important role as pollinators and providers of ecosystem services. In addition, various rapid human-induced environmental changes are leading to the decline of some of its populations. However, we know very little about the conservation status of most species and for many species, we hardly know their true distributions across the Iberian Peninsula. Here, we present a collaborative effort to collate and curate a database of Iberian bee occurrences to answer questions about their distribution, habitat preference, phenology, or historical trends. In total we have gathered 87 684 records from the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands of 923 different species with 87% of georeferenced records collected between 1830 and 2022. In addition, each record has associated information such as the sampling location (89%), collector and person who identified the species (64%), date of the capture (54%) and plant species where the bees were captured (20%). We believe that this database is the starting point to better understand and conserve bee biodiversity in the Iberian Peninsula. It can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6354502

Keywords

Anthophila; Apoidea; biodiversity; database; phenology; Iberian Peninsula; pollinators

Published in

Ecosistemas
2022, Volume: 31, number: 3, article number: 2380
Publisher: ASOCIACION ESPANOLA ECOLOGIA TERRESTRE

SLU Authors

• Diaz Calafat, Joan

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7818/ECOS.2380

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122098