Taiwan Bees: a species level checklist
Rin Krichilsky, Wen-Chi Yeh, Sheng-Shan Lu, I-Hsin Sung

Bees are essential

181 bee species recorded!

➔ Agricultural sustainability➔ Ecosystem function

New record and nesting biology
Trachusa (Paraanthidium) muiri aff.
Part of the ‘longicornis group’ species complex foundpredominantly in Nepal, India, and China [5, 6][1, 2]a)Pollinator dependent
food crops ~40%c)b)Pollinator dependent
ﬂowering plants ~70%

Bees are in decline

Key characters: a) 5 obtuse mandibular teeth, broad
at tip, b) punctate, omaulus concave anteriorly, c)medially emarginate scutellum

Research efforts are biased…
➔ Bees are unsampled in over 80% of land area in theglobal South [3]➔ Over 70% of online bee records come from theglobal North [4]➔ Disenfranchisement of local efforts due colonialand exclusionary practices, location of voucher
specimens, and language barriers

New ﬁndings!

a)

b)

e)
e)

f)

c)

d)

g)

Nest excavation: a) Qianshan park, b) nest entrance,c) tracing tunnel, d) digging, e) removing the ﬁrst cell,f) two older cells in a chamber, g) new incomplete cellwith fresh leaves
Cells upclose!

T. muiri aff.
life stages

1900

1925

1950

1975

2000

presentEgg

Undescribed species

Early instar larva

Larval cocoon

Late instar larva

New record~50 year
research gap
2.32 cm
2.46 cm

Project goal
Establish a bilingual, open-source, and species level
checklist of Taiwan’s bee fauna~30% of Taiwan bee species are endemic
11.10 cm

24.25 cm

Qianshan park 前山公園
June 11, 2022

Fushan garden 福山植物園
June 22, 2022

Nest diagrams from two different areas of north Taiwan

Origins ofT. muiri aff.

Oldest record foundat TARI, collected in1919 WusheMethods
1. Combine records

from online databases

3. Conﬁrm species

by visiting collections

2. Validate

Acknowledgements

4. Accessibility
Chinese names and web platform

Jessica Ware lab
GBIF-Biodiversity Information Fund for Asia, data mobilization grantSociety of Systematic Biologists Mini-Arts grant
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program
John Wang lab, TIGP internship, Academia Sinica
Chi-Feng Lee, Taiwan Agricultural Research InstituteJing-Fu Tsai, Mei-Ling Chan National Museum of Natural Sciences
David Reidi, Hou-Feng Li, National Chung Hsing University
Insect Systematics lab, National Taiwan University

species names

Bee/wasp- 蜂 fēngHylaeus- 面具蜂
miànjù fēng (masked bee)
Lipotriches- 突領彩帶蜂tū lǐng cǎidài fēng (ribbon bee)
Sphecodes- 盜寄隧蜂dào jì suì fēng (parasitic halictid)
5. Digitizationfor species assessment

Endemic Apidae Species

The most rare Taiwan bee➔ Bathanthidium
bifoveolatum(Alfken 1937)➔ 3 specimensfrom 1923

References[1] Klein, et al. 2007. Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
[2] Potts, et al. 2003. Linking bees and ﬂowers: how do ﬂoral communities structure
pollinator communities? Ecology.
[3] Orr, et al. 2021. Global patterns and drivers of bee distribution. Current Biology.
[4] Zattara, Aizen. 2021. Worldwide occurrence records suggest a global decline in bee
species richness. One Earth.
[5] Niu, et al. 2019. Overview of the genus Trachusa Panzer (Hymenoptera:Apoidea:Megachilidae: Anthidiini) from China with description of three new species.
Zootaxa.
[6] Kasparek. 2017. Resin bees of the anthidiine genus Trachusa. Identity, taxonomy,distribution, and biology of old world species. Entomofauna.