The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
$9,987

Pollinators, and primarily bees, are essential to the reproduction of more than 85% of the world’s flowering plants, which in turn produce the fruits and seeds that feed songbirds and other wildlife. Despite the ecological importance of bees, many face extinction risk. Oregon lists both Franklin’s bumble bee and the western bumble bee as Strategy Species in the Oregon Conservation Strategy, and lists several more bumble bees as Data Gap Species. In order to effectively recover populations of these bees, we need to fill gaps in knowledge of their distributions, habitat associations, and life histories.  To address this need, we will enlist Oregonians statewide in the Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas (www.pnwbumblebeeatlas.org), a community science project aimed at tracking bumble bees and making data available for conservation purposes. We will recruit volunteers in eight of the nine ecoregions identified in the Oregon Conservation Strategy to participate in the project. In addition, we will provide two workshops for volunteer community scientists in regions that participation is needed to fill survey gaps and where Strategy Species have historically occurred; one in southern Oregon and one in eastern Oregon. We plan to engage at least 150 volunteers who will collect photographic vouchers of at least 2,000 bumble bees, and make the resulting data available for conservation and recovery planning of imperiled bumble bee species. 

Project Report