Melin, Annalie, Beale, Colin M. orcid.org/0000-0002-2960-5666, Manning, John C. et al. (1 more author) (2024) Fine-scale bee species distribution models:Hotspots of richness and endemism in South Africa with species-area comparisons. Insect conservation and diversity. ISSN 1752-458X
Abstract
While global patterns of bee diversity have been modelled, our understanding of fine-scale regional patterns is more limited, particularly for under-sampled regions such as Africa. South Africa is among the exceptions on the African continent; its bee fauna (ca. 1253 species) has been well collected and documented, including mass digitising of its natural history collections. It is a region with high floral diversity, high habitat heterogeneity and variable rainfall seasonality. Here, we combine a South African bee species distributional database (877 bee species) with a geospatial modelling approach to determine fine-scale (~11 × 11 km grid cell resolution) hotspots of bee species richness, endemism and range-restricted species. Our analyses, based on the probabilities of occurrence surfaces for each species across 108,803 two-minute grid cells, reveal three bee hotspots of richness: Winter rainfall, Aseasonal rainfall and Early-to-late summer rainfall. These hotspots contain large numbers of endemic and geographically restricted taxa. Hotspots with particularly high bee diversity include the Fynbos, Succulent Karoo and Desert biomes; the latter showing 6–20 times more species per unit area than other biomes. Our results conform with global species-area patterns: areas of higher-than-expected bee density are largely concentrated in Mediterranean and arid habitats. This study further enhances our knowledge in identifying regional and global hotspots of richness and endemism for a keystone group of insects and enabling these to be accounted for when setting conservation priorities.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Funding Information: Annalie Melin was supported by Elizabeth Parker, the Mapula Trust, the Natural Science Collections Facility, and National Research Foundation (PDP postdoctoral research fellowship grant no. UID127738). Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors. Insect Conservation and Diversity published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Entomological Society. |
Keywords: | Apoidea,endemic species,natural history collection data,range-restricted species,species density,weighted endemism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Social Sciences (York) > Social Policy and Social Work (York) > York Environmental Sustainability Institute The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 05 Mar 2024 09:00 |
Last Modified: | 12 Dec 2024 00:19 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12715 |
Status: | Published online |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/icad.12715 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:209917 |
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Description: Insect Conserv Diversity - 2024 - Melin - Fine‐scale bee species distribution models Hotspots of richness and endemism in
Licence: CC-BY 2.5