A synopsis of the Bee occurrence data of northern Tanzania

Abstract

Bees (Hymenoptera) are the most important group of pollinators with about 20,000 known species worldwide. Despite the critical role of bees in providing pollination services, studies aiming at understanding which species are present in Tanzania across disturbance gradients are scarce. Limited taxononomic information for the existing and unidentified bees make their conservation strategies haphazard. Here, we present a dataset of bees obtained in surveys in the Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Manyara regions, in northern Tanzania. Our findings serve as baseline data necessary for understanding, the diversity of bees in the northern parts of the country, which is a critical step in devising robust conservation and monitoring strategies for their populations.In this paper, we present information on a total of 45 bee species in 20 genera and 4 families, sampled using a combination of sweep-netting and pantrap methods. Most species, (27 species, 60%) belong to the family Halictidae followed by 16 species (35.5%) from the family Apidae. Megachilidae and Andrenidae were least represented, each with only one species (2.2%). From a total of 953 occurrences, highest numbers were recorded in Kilimanjaro region (n= 511), followed by Arusha (n= 410), and Manyara (n= 32), but this pattern reflects the sampling efforts of the research project rather than real bias in the distributions of bees in northern Tanzania.

Keywords

• agriculture
• bee pollinator
• distribution
• disturb