Scientists have created the first global distribution map for bees, analyzing nearly 6 million public records of where individual species have appeared around the world.
Scientists have created the first global distribution map for bees, analyzing nearly 6 million public records of where individual species have appeared around the world. The project, published in the journal Cell Biology, found that bee diversity is higher in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern, and that bees prefer temperate regions over the tropics.
These findings are contrary to most plant and animal distribution, where diversity tends to be highest in the tropics and diminishes toward the poles.
“People think of bees as just honey bees, bumble bees, and maybe a few others, but there are more species of bees than of birds and mammals combined,” senior author John Ascher, a biologist at the National University of Singapore, said in a statement. “The United States has by far the most species of bees, but there are also vast areas of the African continent and the Middle East which have high levels of undiscovered diversity, more than in tropical areas.”
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Image: The bee species Amegilla andrewsi, one of 20,000 species worldwide. CREDIT: ZESTIN SOH
