Diario del proyecto Bees of South and southern Africa

The UN has designated 20 May as World Bee Day to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development,

Pollinators visit flowers to drink plant nectar and/or eat and/or gather pollen or oils or scents and then transport pollen as they move about. These actions can result in the fertilization of host plants. (Bees in particular do this but so do other invertebrates such as beetles, butterflies, flies, moths and wasps, as well as vertebrates such as birds, bats and rodents, although some plants are wind or self- pollinated).

Welcome to those interested to participate in the World Bee Day/Week 2024 bioblitz May 17, 2024 - May 23, 2024 and help raise awareness of this day.

Last year during roughly this same time period 36,649 observers posted 151,832 qualifying observations as indicated in the World Bee Day/Week 2023 mockup project. 35766 observations were posted by the top 500 observers in 2023.

• This project is running from https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/world-bee-day-week-2024

Please join the project, and record any flower visitors that you see over the week. Any bees will automatically be added to this project.

Pollinators play a vital role in maintaining biodiversity and the stability of ecosystems by facilitating flowering plant reproduction. Humans rely on the results of pollinator activity for many crops yielding food production including fruits, vegetables, and nuts, but also for the production of non-food products such as fibres, dyes, and medicines derived from plant sources.
By contrast, the stability of pollination systems is negatively impacted by human activity. This leads to the loss of habitat by urbanization, agriculture, and land development. Agrochemicals, including pesticides and herbicides, impact pollinators by poisoning them, reducing forage, weakening their immune systems, or disrupting their navigation abilities. Climate changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, and plant phenology can disrupt pollinator and their floral resource synchronization. The introduction of invasive alien species and hives and their parasites and pathogens can also negatively impact native pollinators through competition and pathology.

Raising public awareness and comprehension regarding the importance of pollinators and the necessary steps for their conservation is vital for successful conservation endeavours.

Please consider joining in. It is great fun and contributes useful information.

More information can be found here:

• Main Project: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/world-bee-day-week-2024/journal
• United Nation's page: https://www.un.org/en/observances/bee-day
• FAQs: https://www.fao.org/world-bee-day

Please remember when posting flower visitors, to include the Interactions project to the observations.
Please join here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/interactions-linked/join

to
National:

• South Africa: https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/4451779-Bees-of-South-Africa

Local:
*

Personal:

• Constantia: https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/19275

Fine-scale bee species distribution models: Hotspots of richness and endemism in South Africa with species-area comparisons
Annalie Melin, CM. Beale, JC. Manning, JF. Colville 2024
https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12715

Abstract
1 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.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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.

South African bee richness hotspots at a ~11 × 11 km grid cell resolution

Richness and endemism by Biome:
Biomes Richness (Endemics)
Savanna 712 (215)
Fynbos 698 (233)
Grassland 687 (221)
Succulent Karoo 674 (222)
Nama-Karoo 650 (200)
Albany Thicket 594 (183)
Desert 330 (114)

Relationship between area and the number of bee species - see the paper for details.

http://www.waspweb.org/Apoidea/Images/Bees%20of%20SSAfrica_high%20res_POSTER.pdf

Also:

http://www.waspweb.org/Apoidea/Images/Get_to_know_your_bees_by_Connal_Eardley.pdf

Carpenter Bees:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/carpenter-bees-of-southern-africa

Bees Wasps & Ants:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/african-wasps-bees-and-ants-hymenoptera

Other regions: in Africa
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/bees-of-eastern-africa

Malformed (dont work!) and old projects :
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/african-carder-bee-project

Please remember to use the FAVE button on any observations that are outstanding, interesting or beguiling - or just because you think that they are worthy or fun.

You can also use it to store pictures you may wish to use (find them in your faves box on your dashboard) in the future - please remember to request copyright permissions if the photographer has placed any restrictions on the photos.

You can see the current faves here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?order_by=votes&place_id=any&project_id=bees-of-south-and-southern-africa&verifiable=any

The fave button is under the map on any observation, or if you are using the Identification-curation tool on the bottom left panel.

We also have an observation of the month - https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/nominations-observation-of-the-month-s-afr : merely fave an observation to get into into the nominations window, or join the project and nominate it yourself.
Bees have featured in nominations as follows:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?captive=any&place_id=any&project_id=15518&taxon_id=630955&verifiable=any
But have never yet made Observation of the Month!!

To date in southern Africa we have
12,992 observations by 2,649 observers.
This is for 112 species with 26,697 identifications by 858 identifiers.

However, these data are very biased:
2,954 (23%) observations are Apis mellifera capensis
924 (7%) observations are Apis mellifera scutellata
1,288 (10%) observations are Apis mellifera - without species level IDs. help ID to subspecies here
So 5,166 or 40% of observations are the Honey Bee.

By Rank:

Omitting the Honey Bee, (7,826 observations), we have:
1,786 (23%) observations identified to species level help achieve Research Grade here
.- of which 1,567 are research grade (88%)
4,429 (57%) observations identified to genus or subgenus. help ID finer than genus here
1,370 (18%) observations identified to tribe or subtribe help ID finer than Tribe here
241 (3%) observations identified to family or subfamily help ID finer than Family here

By Subfamily:

• Andrenidae Mining Bees - 14 observations (none to species level) review
• Melittidae Melittid Bees - 23 observations ( 3 spp: some 4 observations to species level) review
• Colletidae Plasterer Bees - 448 observations (4 spp: 26 observations to species level) review

• Megachilidae Mason, Leafcutter, Carder, and Resin Bees - 1,072 observations (17 spp: 125 (13%) research grade) review
  (1,003 Megachilinae, 29 Lithurginae, 8 Fideliinae)

• Halictidae Sweat Bees - 1,339 observations (10 spp: some 15 (1%) research grade) review
  (1,254 Halictinae, 139 Nomiinae, 25 Nomioidinae, 1 Rophitinae)

• Apidae Honey Bees, Bumble Bees, and Allies review (excl. A.m.)
  (4,004 Xylocopinae [1,416 RG], 1,352 Apinae excl. A.m. [113 RG]), 19 Nomadinae)

Top Species (more than 1 observation):

5,166 Apis mellifera Western Honey Bee

858 Xylocopa caffra Doubleband Carpenter
389 Xylocopa flavorufa Giant Carpenter
100 Xylocopa flavicollis Yellow-collared Carpenter

34 Pseudoanthidium truncatum
31 Pseudoanthidium repetitum African Carder Bee
27 Amegilla acraensis
22 Megachile chrysorrhoea
22 Xylocopa capitata

17 Gronoceras cinctum Black-belted Hairy-tailed Resin Bee
16 Hylaeus heraldicus Herald Masked Bee
16 Xylocopa watmoughi Watmough's Carpenter
16 Gronoceras felinum
15 Xylocopa nigrita Black-and-white Carpenter

14 Amegilla atrocincta Blackring Bee
14 Megachile maxillosa
12 Allodapula variegata Variegated Reed Bee
12 Halictus jucundus Pleasing Metallic-Furrow Bee
10 Ceratina moerenhouti Woodmoerer Carpenterbee
10 Xylocopa senior Senior Carpenter

9 Othinosmia globicola Globular Pebblenest Bee
9 Xylocopa inconstans Blackface Carpenter
8 Thyreus delumbatus Curved Cloak-and-dagger Bee
8 Nomioides maculiventris Stripe-tailed Steppe Bee
7 Amegilla caelestina
7 Thyreus calceatus
7 Hyleoides zonalis Yellow-banded Giant-Masked Bee
6 Xylocopa lugubris Sad Carpenter

5 Amegilla nubica
5 Anthophora vestita
5 Plebeina armata Mopane Stingless Bee
4 Megachile venusta
4 Xylocopa hottentotta Hottentot Carpenter

3 Amegilla obscuriceps
3 Gronoceras bombiformis Bombiform Hairy-tailed Resin Bee
3 Megachile rufiventris
3 Thyreus pictus
3 Xylocopa capensis Cape Carpenter
3 Xylocopa rufitarsis Red-footed Carpenter

2 Amegilla capensis
2 Amegilla kaimosica
2 Anthidium cordiforme
2 Anthidium severini
2 Ceratina nasalis Nasal Small Carpenter
2 Hylaeus euxanthus Yellowcollared Masked Bee
2 Megachile basalis
2 Pachymelus festivus
2 Rediviva brunnea Brown Rediviva
2 Thyreus meripes

Genera (without any species Ids)
201 Allodape Colourful Stem Bees
105 Braunsapis Common Stem Bees
54 Scrapter Membrane Bees
51 Patellapis (Zonalictus)

28 Lithurgus Stone Bees
18 Pseudapis Earwing Ground Bees

6 Euaspis
6 Heriades Hole Resin Bees

5 Melandrena
4 Lasioglossum (Ctenonomia)
4 Thrinchostoma
4 Tribe Ammobatini
3 Ceratina (Ceratina) Small Carpenter Bees
3 Pachyanthidium Sputnik Resin Bees
3 Tribe Panurgini

2 Coelioxys (Liothyrapis)
2 Lipotriches (Lipotriches)
2 Melitta Fur-tailed Bees
2 Serapista White-spotted Carder Bee
2 Tetraloniella Long-horned Mining Bees

Top Observers (more than 100 observations):

1 tonyrebelo 681
2 alandmanson 447
3 fionahellmann 391
4 karoopixie 296
5 colin25 289
6 hermanberteler 239
7 magdastlucia 203
8 bushboy 202
9 cecileroux 195
10 mariedelport 188
11 nicky 166
12 philippa5000 124
13 sallyslak 124
14 craigpeter 113
15 shauns 111

Top Observers (more than 50 observations excluding Honeybees):

1 alandmanson 424
2 tonyrebelo 409
3 fionahellmann 270
4 karoopixie 230
5 colin25 213
6 hermanberteler 168
7 mariedelport 167
8 cecileroux 152
9 bushboy 131
10 magdastlucia 117
11 sallyslak 100
12 philippa5000 98
13 nicky 81
14 happyasacupcake 72
15 doug263 70
16 konkoit 67
17 craigpeter 66
18 shauns 58
19 peters5001 56
20 felix_riegel 55
21 leejones 55

Top Observers by species (more than 5 species):

1 alandmanson 14
2 ilzejoubert 11
3 mariedelport 11
4 tonyrebelo 10
5 dewald2 9
6 jaheymans 9
7 rjpretor 9
8 richard_johnstone 8
9 cecileroux 8
10 phil183 22 7
11 felix_riegel 7
12 happyasacupcake 7
13 bushboy 7
14 magdastlucia 7
15 colin25 7
16 wynand_uys 7
17 m_d 6
18 cornerautenbach 6
19 philippa5000 6
20 craigpeter 6
21 geoffnichols 6
22 fionahellmann 6
23 hermanberteler 6
24 sallyslak 6

Top Identifiers (more than 200 identifications for others):

1 johnascher 11,414
2 rjpretor 5,229
3 tonyrebelo 1,329
4 bdagley 1,092
5 traianbertau 1,067
6 colin25 842
7 jeremygilmore 535
8 trevorsless 463
9 liquidanbar 330
10 beetledude 285
11 susanna_h 219