<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">All:</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Below is a copy of a small report we
have put together regarding 47 bee species that have not been detected
in Eastern North America during the past 20 years. This report along
with an Excel Spreadsheet with lots of detailed information is located
at our ftp site:</font>
<br>
<br><a href=ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/><font size=2 face="sans-serif">ftp://ftpext.usgs.gov/pub/er/md/laurel/Droege/</font></a>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">The documents are:</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">48 Missing Species Summary.doc</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">48 Missing Species Summary.docx</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Bee Conservation Status5.xls</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Bee Conservation Status5.xlsx</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Feel free to distribute widely</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">sam</font>
<br>
<div>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Sam Droege sdroege@usgs.gov
<br>
w 301-497-5840 h 301-390-7759 fax 301-497-5624<br>
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center<br>
BARC-EAST, BLDG 308, RM 124 10300 Balt. Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705<br>
</font><a href=Http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov</font></a>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">In nature's infinite book of secrecy<br>
A little I can read<br>
Antony and Cleopatra - Shakespeare</font>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div align=center>
<br><font size=4 face="Calibri"><b>A Summary of the Facts and Patterns
Associated with 47 Species of Bees not Detected in the Past 20 Years in
Eastern North America (1990 – 2009)</b></font></div>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Authors</b>*: M. Arduser, J. S.
Ascher, J. Cane, S. Colla, M. Deyrup, S. Droege**, J. Gibbs, T. Griswold,
G. Hall, C. Henne, H. Ikerd, A. Mayor, J. Neff, R. Jean, M. Rightmyer,
C. Sheffield, M. Veit, A. Wolf , D. Yanega</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">*Authors include anyone who submitted information
regarding the status of a species and are presented in alphabetical order,
actual contributions varied greatly.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">**Corresponding author is Sam Droege(sdroege@usgs.gov)</font>
<div align=center>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Scope</b></font></div>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">This report seeks to address the simple
question of whether there are species of bees in Eastern North America
that have become so uncommon that they have not been seen during the last
20 years (1990 – 2009). Using this list of missing species we hope to
stimulate more in-depth investigations of population status and to initiate
lists of conversation concern among regional and national conservation
and management groups. Our foundation is a list of all bee species
known to have occurred east of the Mississippi River in the United States
and from Ontario East in Canada (see attached Excel spreadsheet).
This list was compiled and provided by John Ascher, and John also provided
lists of individual state and provincial records. </font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">There are approximately 800 recorded species
in the region. The number of species must be qualified due both to
the presence of unpublished new species and to unpublished synonymies;
a testament to the incomplete nature of even such a basic thing as a stable
list of names for the bees present in North America. This list was
passed around the very small world of all known North American bee experts
for review and comment and, as the list was truncated, it was iteratively
reviewed until no more changes were made.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"> From these 800 or so species, 47 (6%)
have not been seen or collected by anyone in the last 20 years (See list
with notes in the attached Excel File).</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"> These 47 missing species are not a
random assemblage of all bee species, but a group with strong associations
with certain categories or guilds and these are outlined below. </font>
<div align=center>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Categories of Patterns</b></font></div>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b> Rarity</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">All these species can be said to have been
rare to uncommon in collections and thus, at minimum, have always been
uncommon species. Some are known only from single specimens, others
from but a few.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Parasitic Lifestyle</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">Nineteen species are known to be inquilines
or nest parasites of other species. These come from the parasitic
genera <i>Epeolus, Nomada, Sphecodes, Stelis, </i>and<i> Triepeolus
</i>and may possibly also include <i> Lasioglossum wheeleri.</i></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Geographic Localities</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">Within the East certain patterns emerge
regarding the geographic distributions of the species on the missing list.
Few species are restricted to the middle latitudes, while over half
(25) are from the Deep South and, of those, eight have only been collected
from within the comparatively small landmass of the Florida peninsula.
A few species have a distribution primarily from the Great Plains
and to the west and nine species are northerly in distribution. Such
geographic patterns are likely a reflection of both true patterns of rarity
(often associated with sandy areas) and lack of recent collection activity
in these areas.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Taxonomic Ambiguity</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">A number of species are members of poorly
studied genera, have been found only once, or their identification is difficult
or controversial. Their existence on this list may simply be due
to lack of scrutiny. We suspect this may possibly be the case for:
<i>Epeolus banksi</i>, <i>Epeolus vernalis</i>, <i>Lasioglossum wheeleri</i>,
<i>Melissodes pilleata</i></font><font size=2 face="Times New Roman">,</font><font size=2 face="Calibri">
and potentially all of the Sphecodes.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Pollen Specialty</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">As most of these species were rare to begin
with, little is directly known of their associations with plant genera.
That said, many of the non-parasitic species are members of bee genera
that commonly restrict themselves to collecting pollen only from a limited
number of plant species. Thus, if those plants species are rare,
or collectors do not happen to collect from those plants, then species
may go undetected for long periods of time.</font>
<div align=center>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Implications</b></font></div>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Common Species Remain Common</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">No species of bee that could, in the past,
be called common or abundant appears on the list of missing species; consolation
to small degree that any recent changes to bee populations has not been
so dramatic as to cause our common bees to disappear. The only exception
to this is the disappearance or near disappearance of several bumblebee
species. While all the bumblebee species have been detected in the
last 20 years, catastrophic declines have been demonstrated only within
the last 10 years. That these declines were detectable creates the
hope that at least for other common bee species, large scale declines would
be noticed.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>More Collecting Required</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">Clearly it is possible that many of these
missing species may still be present but simply not detected. Evidence
for that comes from the reasonably large number of the species that were
detected but only occurred as single individuals (this was unfortunately
not quantified). The high numbers of missing Deep South and Florida
species mirrors the general lack of collecting in these regions during
the last 20 years, particularly in comparison to past efforts of the late
T. Mitchell of North Carolina and his network of southern correspondents
and collectors.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Institutional Support for Museums and
Collections</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">In the past museums, collections, and their
staff within states, provinces, and academic institutes functioned as regional
sources of information about bee populations and status. Currently,
there is a grave outright loss of these collections and, for those that
remain, we know of none that are supported even to the level they were
in the previous century.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Creation of a Tracking Mechanism</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">While there is no formal monitoring system
in place for bees, the fact that drastic declines can occur (e.g., the
crash of bumblebee populations), the importance of bees to agricultural
security and the propagation of native plants, and the overall interest
in this group of species argues for the creation of some form or inventory,
monitoring, or periodic assessment of population status.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>Support for Collecting and Surveying
Bees</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">Rare and uncommon bees are unlikely to be
regularly captured in a monitoring scheme. Monitoring schemes usually
fix placement of survey traps and tend to favor the tracking of common
species over the detection of rare ones. Rare bees are best captured
by people specifically looking for rare bees. Large geographic coverage
and specialized habitats (e.g., deep sand or bogs) need to be purposefully
searched via regional inventories. Rare bees are found by capturing
and processing large numbers of bees and having those bees identified by
experts.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">To facilitate the detection of rare bees
is to facilitate those who would capture, process, curate, and identity
those bees. These activities have waned over the past 100 years
as people have moved indoors and universities have emphasized molecular
work over traditional morphological revisions. It would be very
useful to create a society similar to that in the United Kingdom that promotes
the collecting and the detection and tracking of rare species; create up-to-date
regional and national annotated lists of bees; develops bee identification
tools; create courses that teach people how to identify bee species; databases
existing collections of native bees; and creates new tracking and reporting
databases for bees currently being collected.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>What to do About the Species Currently
on this List?</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">First, it would make sense for state, provincial,
and national Heritage departments to add these species to their Heritage
ranking schemes. It would also make sense to perform specific surveys
for these species to determine more fully their status and hopefully learn
more about their Life History. One should assume for now that these
species are still present somewhere and hopefully not extinct. At
minimum, a literature and specimen review should be created that explores
what is known about past geographic and times of occurrence, habitat preferences,
hosts, and floral records for each of these species and from that gathering
create a plan for further study and ultimately re-detection and conservation.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri"><b>How Should This Report be Used?</b></font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">This report reflects the opinions and experiences
of the above listed authors and should not be construed as any form of
endorsement by the author’s funders or places of employment.</font>
<p><font size=2 face="Calibri">Date of Last Editing: 8/05/2010</font>
<p>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif"><br>
</font><font size=5 color=#008000 face="Webdings">P</font><font size=2 color=#008000>
<b>Bees are not optional</b></font><font size=1 color=#008000><b>.</b></font></div>