Wild bees of Chile: a database on taxonomy, sociality, and ecology

Abstract

Bees are a diverse group of insects that have tremendous importance as pollinators. In recent decades, there has been a global decline in bee populations because of land‐use change, intensive agriculture, and climate change. Unfortunately, our knowledge of native bees’ ecology is rather scarce, and such knowledge gaps are also a major threat to its conservation. In this sense, biological collections are a priceless natural history legacy and an information source for new research and decision making. Chile has a remarkable bee diversity, with 464 species currently known from Chile and a high incidence of endemism and a variety of habitats (including the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot). The largest wild bee collection in Chile is held at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (comprising a century of data). This collection has been recently included in GBIF. Here we present a database with 36,010 records, including information on sociality and ecology (including information on floral visitation range, the resource collected, and nesting substrates) for 160 out of the 167 bee species included (36% of the Chilean bee diversity, including 49 genera and five families). All records have the taxonomy resolved, and 83% of them have geographic coordinates, covering a latitudinal range between 18° S and 53° S from the continental and insular territories. This data set is released for noncommercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY‐NC‐SA).

Inferring trends in pollinator distributions across the Neotropics from publicly available data remains challenging despite mobilization efforts

“…To determine the extent to which the digitization of historic collections can improve our ability to estimate trends in species' distributions, we focussed on two recent mobilization efforts in Chile. The first comprises 36,010 records of wild bees in Chile collected over the period 1917–2010 (Lopez‐Aliste and Fonturbel, 2021b; López‐Aliste et al, 2021). This dataset was added to GBIF on 22 April 2021.…”

A comprehensive catalogue of plant-pollinator interactions for Chile

“…Although agricultural pollinators have been well studied, native pollinators remain largely unknown. With over 460 species of native bees in Chile, approximately 70% are endemic; researchers have only begun to understand the relationships between native plants and their pollinators 22 – 24 . Also, managed honeybees and bumblebees introduced to Chile for crop pollination are highly invasive and easily leave croplands to forage in neighbouring native ecosystems 25 , 26 , competing directly with native pollinators for the ever-diminishing resources in native grasslands and forests posing a threat to Chile’s unique ecoregions 25 , 27 .…”

Local Actions to Tackle a Global Problem: A Multidimensional Assessment of the Pollination Crisis in Chile

“…In Chile, although general knowledge of the local and landscape effects on pollinators are known based on global studies, specific ecological requirements at the species level (e.g., nesting habitat, plant resources, pollinator networks, dispersal distances) are scarce. However, a large dataset of 160 bee species (36% of bee species estimated to exist in Chile), including ecological features, was recently published by López-Aliste et al [20]. The orchard agroindustry in Chile imports queens of the buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris [21], ignoring the pollination efficiency of this species and the real contribution to crop yield compared to the surrounding local pollinating species, such as Bombus dahlbomii.…”

“…The potential importance for agriculture of the native bees in Chile is enormous, with 464 bee species described (Figure 2), of which 70% are endemic [37] and mainly solitary [20]. Thus, it is relevant to research basic biology and ecology of native solitary bee species (e.g., diet breadth and nesting biology) to promote research programs that allow the selection and of domestic species that may provide pollination service demanded by the agriculture practice.…”

“…Recently, a large database of wild bees has been published [20], dramatically increasing the amount of freely available information. However, there are still major information gaps to be covered, as this large database contains information on 167 out of 464 bee species described for Chile (leaving 64% of the bee species with no reported evidence).…”