First Let's Discover
The University of Arizona Insect Collection (UAIC) maintains thousands of native bee specimens, representing 5 families (Andrenidae, Apidae, Colletidae, Halicitidae, and Megachilidae), 65 genera, and approximately 520 species. Many more species await discovery as we focus our energy on re-curating the native bee collection, processing our unidentified material, and targeting new specimen acquisitions. The collection itself and associated identification tools we are building will help researchers to understand and monitor the health of native bees of the Sonoran Desert Region.
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The Tucson Bee Collaborative is generating high-resolution images of native bee specimens in the UAIC.
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The Tucson Bee Collaborative is contributing locality data associated with the specimens in the UAIC to the Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network (SCAN) to develop species occurrence maps.
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Distribution map of Xylocopa californica arizonensis
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The Tucson Bee Collaborative is generating species-specific DNA sequences to allow for species to be more easily discovered, distinguished, and identified.
To explore all of the sequences we have published to date, visit our Barcode of Life dataset here. |
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Following best practices as outlined in the USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program, researchers and volunteers at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and at the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) Southwest Biological Science Center (located on the UA main campus) and the are undertaking long-term native bee monitoring programs across a variety of habitats in the Tucson Basin.
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Many such monitoring efforts have sprung up in recent years, spurred by concern over bee declines. But investment in ecological monitoring has rarely been matched with investment in the taxonomy needed to identify species. To aid species identification members of the Tucson Bee Collaborative are DNA-barcoding these specimens. specimens. The DNA barcodes are published on the Barcode of Life Database and the voucher specimens are deposited in the
University of Arizona Insect Collection.
University of Arizona Insect Collection.
