Declines in native bee populations are widely reported, but can existing data really analyze these trends? In the Jan. 17, 2019, online edition of PLOS One, Utah State University and USDA researchers report findings about pollinator biodiversity in California’s Pinnacles National Park derived from data collected from three separate surveys spanning 17 years. Their results documented 450 species of wild, native bees at Pinnacles, including 48 new to the area since 2002, and 95 detected at the site in the 1990s, but now missing.
“This number of species marks the park as a national biodiversity hotspot for bees,” says lead author Joan Meiners, who completed a master’s degree from Utah State in 2016.
In drafting the report, Meiners and co-researchers Terry Griswold, USDA-ARS entomologist and USU adjunct faculty member and USU alum Olivia Messinger Carril, an independent scientist, who conducted the original bee surveys at Pinnacles in the 1990s, also completed a literature review of similar studies. Their efforts were supported by the National Park Service and USDA-ARS.
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Image via Utah State University.