Publication Date:
2024-04-18
Description:
Understanding and reversing biodiversity decline in the Anthropocene requires robust data on species taxonomic
identity, distribution, ecology, and population trends. Data deficits hinder biodiversity assessments and conservation, and despite major advances over the past few decades, our understanding of bee diversity, decline and
distribution in Europe is still hampered by such data shortfalls. Using a unique digital dataset of wild bee
occurrence and ecology, we identify seven critical shortfalls which are an absence of knowledge on geographic
distributions, (functional) trait variation, population dynamics, evolutionary relationships, biotic interactions,
species identity, and tolerance to abiotic conditions. We describe “BeeFall,” an interactive online Shiny app tool,
which visualizes these shortfalls and highlights missing data. We also define a new impediment, the Keartonian
Impediment, which addresses an absence of high-quality in situ photos and illustrations with diagnostic characteristics and directly affects the outlined shortfalls. Shortfalls are highly correlated at both the provincial and
national scales, identifying key areas in Europe where knowledge gaps can be filled. This work provides an
important first step towards the long-term goal to mobilize and aggregate European wild bee data into a multiscale, easy access, shareable, and updatable database which can inform research, practice, and policy actions for
the conservation of wild bees.
Keywords:
Knowledge gaps
;
Big data
;
Online tool
;
Biodiversity decline
;
Citizen science
;
Biodiversity monitoring
Repository Name:
National Museum of Natural History, Netherlands
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Format:
application/pdf
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