Specialist Bees of Midwest

[Peter Bernhardt]

Dr. Mike Arduser has provided us with his own checklist of specialist bee species in the Midwest. The bee species is matched with native plant genera. Some of you may wish to compare this list to the link provided by Sam Droege for oligolectic bees of North America (below).

For those who collect bees near houses and in parks it might be interesting to see if these specialists are found on flowers of cultivated plants and hybrids derived from species not native to North America. For example, both lists identify bee species associated primarily (exclusively?) with willows but the most common willow here in Missouri must be the weeping willow (Salix babylonica), a Eurasian species, that escapes easily from park ponds as branches snap off, are carried downstream and root in sand bars. Also, consider the Andrena that is a holly (Ilex) specialist. Will it be found on planted hollies that came originally from Europe?

Peter

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From: Peter Bernhardt <peter.b...@slu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2021 6:13 PM
To: Austin, Matthew <matthew...@wustl.edu>
Subject: Fw: [External] Re: Visit link and keep for future reference

 

Matthew:

As promised, here is Dr. Arduser's Excel list which matches specialist bee species with flowers of plant genera in the midwest. Much of this is best on Mike's own collections. Please pass this on to the rest of the members. If you follow the thread, Sam Droege gives us all a link to North American specialist bees and their flowers. Comparing what we have in the Midwest to what we have in Canada and AMerica may also be useful.

Peter

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From: Michael Arduser <arduser...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2021 7:20 AM
To: Peter Bernhardt <peter.b...@slu.edu>
Cc: Gerardo Camilo <gerardo...@slu.edu>; Alan Moss <alan....@gmail.com>; Jenny Mullikin <jenny.m...@slu.edu>; mike arduser <arduse...@gmail.com>; Nina Fogel <nina....@slu.edu>; Retha Meier <rme...@gmail.com>
Subject: [External] Re: Visit link and keep for future reference

 

This is an Excel list of putative oligoleges  I've developed over the years for the tallgrass prairie region (including all of MO) - it is searchable.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 9:57 PM Peter Bernhardt <peter.b...@slu.edu> wrote:

The following links were provided by Sam Droege. I suggest we keep this list in mind for two reasons.

1) When something unusual turns up on the wrong flower or at the wrong time we can refer to the list to see what the preferred pollen resource is.

2) We can compare the list to the collection as it expands and associate some rare finds with specific locations.

https://jarrodfowler.com/specialist_bees.html

Centralish

https://jarrodfowler.com/bees_pollen.html

West

https://jarrodfowler.com/pollen_specialist.html

sam

 

 

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[Ai Wen]

Thanks Dr. Bernhardt for sharing and for all the effort Dr. Arduser spent to compile the list. I am in the middle or writing a manuscript and this (together with the Sam/Fawler's list) is very helpful.

I did a very quick comparison of the two lists, focusing on the handful of species that are of interests to my manuscript, and there are two bees that came out as a surprise. On Dr. Arduser's list, Andrena wilkella is listed as an exotic/introduced species specializing on Fabaceae. DiscoverLife does not list this species as introduced/exotic, and also shows a wide range of floral hosts. Secondly, Dr. Arduser's list has Megachile latimanus as a specialist on Asteraceae/Fabaceae, while the Droege/Fawler list does not include it as a specialist.

Pollinator's specialization is a complex topic and will take decades of research to compile a list, and I am not totally surprised there are some differences between these lists. I am just wondering whether others can give me some opinions on these two species indicated above, on whether you consider them as (somewhat) oligolectic bees. Thanks! --Ai

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Ai Wen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Biology

193 McCollum Science Hall

University of Northern Iowa

summerbug23.wordpress.com

[Peter Bernhardt]

Dear Ai Wen:

Believe it or not, Dr. Arduser is not on this list serve so I am including him in this reply. He should know you have helped him. Mike has been an invaluable contributor to the Bernhardt/Meier lab over the past decade and deserves more credit.

Pollinator specialization remains a complicated topic because it is well studied but not studied well. Removing, staining and mounting pollen is easy but too many entomologists either don't want to do it or don't (can't?, won't?) work along with a palynologist. The preferred stain is made of the cheapest chemicals and once assembled, can be stored at room temperature on a dark shelf. I would also say that these techniques and protocols make it much easier to understand where a polylectic bee (most Bombus) shops during a daily foraging bout. If you find 4-5 different grains in her corbiculae the odds are she visited 4-5 different flowering plant species before you caught her. We should all consider the positive example Dr. David Roubik who combined tropical bee and pollen identification decades ago in his Panamanian studies. 

The foraging preferences of specialist bees may be more plastic than we think especially as their range expands. Perhaps Dr. Ollerton will share some of his current observations/data on foraging behavior of the European ivy bee (Colletes hederae), first recorded in Britain in 2001. He wrote me about recent results, and it looks like some populations are tolerant of a broader diet.

Peter

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From: beemon...@googlegroups.com <beemon...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ai Wen <ai....@uni.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2021 12:20 PM
To: Peter Bernhardt <peter.b...@slu.edu>
Cc: beemon...@googlegroups.com <beemon...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [External] Re: [Beemonitoring] Specialist Bees of Midwest

 

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[Jack Neff]

Dr. Wen:  Andrena wilkella is generally assumed to have been introduced from Europe in historic times, perhaps in ships ballast and is a specialist on papillionaceous Fabaceae.  I would not consider a bee like Megachile latimanus, which purportedly regularly collects pollen of the Fabaceae and Asteraceae, to be oligolectic.  A relatively narrow generalist maybe.  The term mesolectic might be used by some for cases like that.

best

Jack

John L. Neff Central Texas Melittological Institute 7307 Running Rope Austin,TX 78731 USA 512-345-7219

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