The bee population is dying. Researchers created the first global map of species to save them.

There are more than 20,000 bee species around the world and they are dying from climate change, pesticide poisoning and plant loss.

According to a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, researchers have taken an important first step towards bee conservation by creating the first modern map of bee species represented globally.

Until now, accurate information on the number of bee species and models around the world has been limited, especially in developing countries where publicly accessible records are scarce, the study says.

The team’s findings established an important baseline and best practices for future studies on bees and other under-studied invertebrates, the study says.

“We wanted to create the first modern map of bee species richness because we need to know where bees live to keep them,” said Michael Orr, first author of the study and postdoctoral fellow at the Chinese Academy’s Institute of Zoology. of sciences.

“This is an important first step for that, and in the future we can start working more on threats to bees such as habitat destruction and climate change, and to better incorporate pollination services into ecosystem services analyzes.”

To develop their maps, the researchers combined data from more than 5.8 million public bee records with a distribution checklist of more than 20,000 bee species accessible online on the DiscoverLife.org biodiversity portal.

Their analyzes yielded a clearer description of the number and patterns of bee species spread across different geographic locations. It revealed higher concentrations of bee diversity in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere and more in arid desert and temperate environments than in humid, tropical and wooded areas.

Their findings support previous hypotheses that bee diversity follows a bimodal latitudinal gradient, meaning that more bee species are found away from the north and south poles and less close to the equator.

This assumption has often been proven false due to a lack of sufficient data, but researchers can now confidently say that bees are one of the few insect groups that follow this distribution pattern, according to Orr.

“Surprisingly, despite the critical importance of bees as pollinators, a complete source of information on where the world’s different bee species are found has not been provided until now,” said Rachael Winfree, professor of ecology, evolution and resources. natural at Rutgers University.

“The authors of this paper are the world’s experts on this topic and their work is a big step forward for the field of biodiversity conservation.”

An accurate understanding and prioritization of bee species distribution can have a major impact on species survival in the future and has the potential to prove crucial for food security and maintaining livelihoods in rural areas, Orr said. .

“Climate change poses a great threat to many species,” he said. “But that will be irrelevant if we don’t protect the habitats the species need that are being destroyed now.”

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