The United States - Mexico border cut across through large expanses of unspoiled ground in North America , including a fresh discovered planetary hotspot of bee diversity . Concentrated in 16 km2 of protect Chihuahuan Desert are more than 470 bee species , a remarkable 14 % of the known United States bee fauna .
This globally unpaired denseness of bee species is reported by Dr. Robert Minckley of the University of Rochester and William Radke of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in the open - entree , peer - reviewed Journal of Hymenoptera Research .
scientist studying native U.S. bees have long recognized that the Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert of North America , home to species with interesting lifetime account , have high-pitched bee biodiversity . incisively how many species have largely remain conjecture . Together with students from Mexico , Guatemala , and the United States , the authors made perennial assemblage over multiple years , identifying more than 70,000 specimen .
Without such intensive collecting , a full picture of the bee diversity would not have been potential . Most of these bee species are solitary , without a queen regnant or actor , which visit bloom over a 2 - 4 calendar week lifespan and specialize in pollen and ambrosia from one to a few plants . Furthermore , these desert species know periodic drought , which the unripened stage survive by going into sleeping for years , much like the seeds of the desert plants they pollinate .
to boot , bee diversity is notoriously unmanageable to estimate and compare among study , because of differences in the pile up techniques and the size of the studied area . An unexpected welfare of the regular and intensive sampling for this study was the chance to test if the celebrate bee diversity approached the honest bee variety in this area , or if many more species were yet to be found . In this case , the bombastic San Bernardino Valley surface area is home to 500 bee species , only slightly above the phone number of specie recuperate along the borderline – an unco full-bodied confirmation of the investigator ' estimation .
What we bed about the decline of bees due to human activity , along with that of other pollinators , is ground primarily on diverseness information from human - modified habitats . Needed is baseline selective information on aboriginal bees from pristine area to help us assess the magnitude and infer the ways in which human beings impact bee beast . This bailiwick from the Chihuahuan Desert is therefore an important contribution towards filling that knowledge gap from one of the bee biodiversity hotspots in the world .
interpret the complete article atwww.sciencedaily.com .
Robert L. Minckley , William R. Radke . Extreme coinage density of bees ( Apiformes , Hymenoptera ) in the warm comeuppance of North America . Journal of Hymenoptera Research , 2021 ; 82 : 317 DOI : 10.3897 / jhr.82.60895
