Bees are crucial to ensuring health and resilience in both natural ecosystems and agricultural systems, and in recent years scientists and the general public have become aware that bees are under threat due to climate change and human impacts. But most people don’t realize there are species of bees other than the honeybee, and that these native species are far more important to sustaining healthy ecosystems. Unlike honeybees, which were brought to North America by humans 400 years ago, native bees have lived here for millions of years and are specifically adapted to pollinate flowers in the Sonoran Desert Region. The number of native bee species in this part of the world is staggering. In fact, southeastern Arizona is one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in the world for native bees. More species live here than any other place in the world, with the possible exception of the desert areas in and around Israel. These largely unknown and unsung architects of our landscape are under threat due to changing climate, land use change, and the intensification of agriculture.

The goal of this VIP is to increase knowledge and awareness of our native bees and thus aid conservation efforts to protect these critically important pollinators. We are conducting biotic surveys and inventories, and long-term monitoring projects of native bees throughout the Sonoran Desert Region. We are building a vouchered collection of specimens representing all species curated in the University of Arizona Insect Collection, producing and publishing high-resolution photographs of the specimens, and producing and publishing DNA sequences from standardized regions of their genome. We are thus documenting both the morphological and genetic diversity of our native pollinators, while simultaneously building resources for rapid, reliable species-level identification and creating a standardized baseline for future monitoring of changes in native bee diversity. This VIP is also establishing the systematic and genetic foundation necessary for a myriad of hypothesis-driven research questions related on pollinators, food security, and effects of climate change in the Southwest.