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Assessing declines of North American bumble bees (Bombus spp.) using museum specimens

Biodiversity and Conservation volume 21, pages 3585–3595 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Bumble bees are an important group of wild pollinators in North America and considerable concern has been expressed over declines in their populations. However, before causes for declines can be assessed, it is essential that the geographical and chronological patterns of decline be discovered. Hitherto a lack of assessment of historical data has hindered our efforts to determine which species are most at risk. Here, the status of 21 North American bumble bee species (Hymenoptera: Apidae) occurring in the eastern nearctic biogeographic region is assessed using a specimen-level database from compiled museum and survey records dating back to the late nineteenth century from various institutional collections. Using a combination of measures, bumble bee declines were assessed over their entire native ranges. We report here that half of the selected fauna is in varying levels of decline (especially Bombus ashtoni, B. fervidus, and B. variabilis), with the remaining species exhibiting stable or increasing trends (e.g., B. bimaculatus, B. impatiens, and B. rufocinctus). Suggestions for prioritizing conservation efforts for this important group of pollinators are given.

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Acknowledgments

This work would not have been possible without the use of valuable insect specimens from many well-curated collections and recent surveys. We thank additional data providers J. Ascher, Caroline Scully, Mike Arduser, Steve Javorek and Kevin Matteson. We would like to thank Michael Otterstatter for help with statistical analyses and Paul Williams, Ignasi Bartomeus, Sarina Jepsen and reviewers for valuable comments. We thank NSERC-CANPOLIN and NSERC CGS to Fawziah Gadallah and Sheila Colla respectively for providing funding for this work. Data capture at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), the University of Connecticut, Rutgers University, and Cornell University was supported by NSF DBI Grant (0956388, P. I. John S. Ascher), with additional support at AMNH from Robert G. Goelet and at University of Connecticut and the Peabody Museum of Natural History by a state wildlife Grant (09DEP10012AA, P.I. DLW). This is contribution No. 58 from the Canadian Pollination Initiative (NSERC-CANPOLIN).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada

    Sheila R. Colla

  2. University of Ottawa, 550 Cumberland St, Ottawa, ON, K1N 6N5, Canada

    Fawziah Gadallah

  3. Dartmouth College Life Sciences Center, 78 College Street, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA

    Leif Richardson

  4. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269-3043, USA

    David Wagner

  5. Entomology Division, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Lawrence Gall

Authors
  1. Sheila R. Colla
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  2. Fawziah Gadallah
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  3. Leif Richardson
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  4. David Wagner
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Correspondence to Sheila R. Colla.

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Colla, S.R., Gadallah, F., Richardson, L. et al. Assessing declines of North American bumble bees (Bombus spp.) using museum specimens. Biodivers Conserv 21, 3585–3595 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-012-0383-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-012-0383-2

Keywords

  • Pollinator decline
  • Bumble bees
  • Bombus
  • Grid cell
  • Museum data
  • Insect collections