Date of Award:

8-2011

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Biology

Committee Chair(s)

James P. Pitts

Committee

James P. Pitts

Committee

James P. Strange

Committee

David N. Koons

Abstract

Several reports of North American bumble bee (Bombus Latreille) decline have been documented across the continent, but no study has fully assessed the geographic scope of decline. In this study I discuss the importance of Natural History Collections (NHC) in estimating historic bumble bee distributions and abundances, as well as in informing current surveys. To estimate changes in distribution and relative abundance I compare historic data assembled from a >73,000 specimen database with a contemporary 3-year survey of North American bumble bees across 382 locations in the contiguous U.S.A. Based on my results, four historically abundant bumble bees, B. affinis, B. occidentalis, B. pensylvanicus and B. terricola, have declined by 72 - 96% relative abundance across their native distribution, while B. bifarius, B. bimaculatus, B. impatiens, and B. vosnesenskii appear to be relatively stable. Finally, I provide some notes on the distribution, abundance, and frequency of Nosema bombi infections in Alaskan B. occidentalis.

Checksum

58eede23a6a3e2a875a227d22feebb39

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on September 2, 2011.

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