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The United States of America has a diverse collection of freshwater mussels comprising 301 species distributed among 59 genera and two families (Margaritiferidae and Unionidae), each having a unique suite of traits. Mussels are among the most imperilled animals and are critical components of their ecosystems, and successful management, conservation and research requires a cohesive and widely accessible data source. Although trait-based analysis for mussels has increased, only a small proportion of traits reflecting mussel diversity in this region has been collated. Decentralized and non-standardized trait information impedes large-scale analysis. Assembling trait data in a synthetic dataset enables comparison across species and lineages and identification of data gaps. We collated data from the primary literature, books, state and federal reports, theses and dissertations, and museum collections into a centralized dataset covering information on taxonomy, morphology, reproductive ecology and life history, fish hosts, habitats, thermal tolerance, geographic distribution, available genetic information, and conservation status. By collating these traits, we aid researchers in assessing variation in mussel traits and modelling ecosystem change., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Bumble bees are ecologically and economically important insect pollinators. Three abundant and widespread species in western North America, Bombus bifarius , Bombus vancouverensis , and Bombus vosnesenskii , have been the focus of substantial research relating to diverse aspects of bumble bee ecology and evolutionary biology. We present de novo genome assemblies for each of the three species using hybrid assembly of Illumina and Oxford Nanopore Technologies sequences. All three assemblies are of high quality with large N50s (> 2.2 Mb), BUSCO scores indicating > 98% complete genes, and annotations producing 13,325 - 13,687 genes, comparing favorably with other bee genomes. Analysis of synteny against the most complete bumble bee genome, Bombus terrestris , reveals a high degree of collinearity. These genomes should provide a valuable resource for addressing questions relating to functional genomics and evolutionary biology in these species., (Copyright © 2020 Heraghty et al.)

Several bumble bee (Bombus) species in North America have undergone range reductions and rapid declines in relative abundance. Pathogens have been suggested as causal factors, however, baseline data on pathogen distributions in a large number of bumble bee species have not been available to test this hypothesis. In a nationwide survey of the US, nearly 10,000 specimens of 36 bumble bee species collected at 284 sites were evaluated for the presence and prevalence of two known Bombus pathogens, the microsporidium Nosema bombi and trypanosomes in the genus Crithidia. Prevalence of Crithidia was ≤10% for all host species examined but was recorded from 21% of surveyed sites. Crithidia was isolated from 15 of the 36 Bombus species screened, and were most commonly recovered from Bombus bifarius, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus impatiens and Bombus mixtus. Nosema bombi was isolated from 22 of the 36 US Bombus species collected. Only one species with more than 50 sampled bees, Bombus appositus, was free of the pathogen; whereas, prevalence was highest in Bombus occidentalis and Bombus pensylvanicus, two species that are reportedly undergoing population declines in North America. A variant of a tetranucleotide repeat in the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of the N. bombi rRNA gene, thus far not reported from European isolates, was isolated from ten US Bombus hosts, appearing in varying ratios in different host species. Given the genetic similarity of the rRNA gene of N. bombi sampled in Europe and North America to date, the presence of a unique isolate in US bumble could reveal one or more native North American strains and indicate that N. bombi is enzootic across the Holarctic Region, exhibiting some genetic isolation., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)