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While bees are critical to sustaining a large proportion of global food production, as well as pollinating both wild and cultivated plants, they are decreasing in both numbers and diversity. Our understanding of the factors driving these declines is limited, in part, because we lack sufficient data on the distribution of bee species to predict changes in their geographic range under climate change scenarios. Additionally lacking is adequate data on the behavioral and anatomical traits that may make bees either vulnerable or resilient to human-induced environmental changes, such as habitat loss and climate change. Fortunately, a wealth of associated attributes can be extracted from the specimens deposited in natural history collections for over 100 years.Extending Anthophila Research Through Image and Trait Digitization (Big-Bee) is a newly funded US National Science Foundation Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections project. Over the course of three years, we will create over one million high-resolution 2D and 3D images of bee specimens (Fig. 1), representing over 5,000 worldwide bee species, including most of the major pollinating species. We will also develop tools to measure bee traits from images and generate comprehensive bee trait and image datasets to measure changes through time. The Big-Bee network of participating institutions includes 13 US institutions (Fig. 2) and partnerships with US government agencies. We will develop novel mechanisms for sharing image datasets and datasets of bee traits that will be available through an open, Symbiota-Light (Gilbert et al. 2020) data portal called the Bee Library. In addition, biotic interaction and species association data will be shared via Global Biotic Interactions (Poelen et al. 2014). The Big-Bee project will engage the public in research through community science via crowdsourcing trait measurements and data transcription from images using Notes from Nature (Hill et al. 2012). Training and professional development for natural history collection staff, researchers, and university students in data science will be provided through the creation and implementation of workshops focusing on bee traits and species identification. We are also planning a short, artistic college radio segment called "the Buzz" to get people excited about bees, biodiversity, and the wonders of our natural world.This poster was prepared for TDWG 2021 virtual conference.

Specimens of an egg parasitoid wasp, Telenomus cristatus Johnson (Platygastroidea, Scelionidae), were reared from stink bug egg masses collected in the wild, in Maryland, United States. The egg masses were identified morphologically as Halyomorpha halys (Stål), Banasa Stål and Euschistus Dallas (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae). Molecular tools were used to further identify the Euschistus egg masses as E. servus (Say) and E. tristigmus (Say). All of these are new host associations for Te. cristatus. We also provide data to contribute to future identification of Te. cristatus: images of the holotype specimen and COI sequences from two disparate localities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying consistent terminology for morphological traits across different taxa is a highly pertinent task in the study of morphology and evolution. Different terminologies for the same traits can generate bias in phylogeny and prevent correct homology assessments. This situation is exacerbated in the male genitalia of Hymenoptera, and specifically in Ichneumonoidea, in which the terminology is not standardized and has not been fully aligned with the rest of Hymenoptera. In the current contribution, we review the terms used to describe the skeletal features of the male genitalia in Hymenoptera, and provide a list of authors associated with previously used terminology. We propose a unified terminology for the male genitalia that can be utilized across the order and a list of recommended terms. Further, we review and discuss the genital musculature for the superfamily Ichneumonoidea based on previous literature and novel observations and align the terms used for muscles across the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, several species of platygastroid wasps were found to be adventive in North America and Europe while under evaluation in quarantine as biological control agents of invasive pests. The scope and relative risk of this phenomenon is not fully known, but it is clearly a trend with implications for classical biological control. As a means of assessing the issue and to provide a global baseline, we implemented a data-mining approach with DNA sequences in the Barcode of Life Database, yielding 201 platygastroid BINs with intercontinental and island distributions. At least fifty-five BINs displayed exact COI barcode matches across continents, with many more BINs scored as inconclusive due to sequence length variation. These intercontinental and island BINs include biocontrol agents known to be adventive, as well as many species identified only to genus with uncertain geographic origins. We provide 2,500 identifications for platygastroid BOLD BINs, 88% to genus, to encourage additional research on this distributional phenomenon. The intercontinental BOLD BINs were compared to literature records and GBIF occurrences of cosmopolitan species to identify gaps and discordance across data sources. Smaller COI barcode datasets from localities in Florida and Germany, including topotypical specimens, revealed more intercontinental matches. We analyzed COI sequences in BOLD for the entirety of Insecta and Araneae to assessthis phenomenon more broadly and because these taxa contain many hosts for platygastroid wasps. This method revealed that the intercontinental distribution phenomenon is widespread with implications for assessing biological diversity, taxonomic methodology and regulatory frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Iranian species of the superfamily Platygastroidea (Hymenoptera) belonging to two families Platygastridae, (12 genera, 35 species) and Scelionidae (13 genera, 46 species), are reviewed. The recorded platygastroid species from Iran represent a very small assemblage of the world fauna, and certainly not the complete list from Iran. Except for a few recently described species, the others are found in many other countries as well. The known distribution for 27 species (77.1%) of Platygastridae of Iran is restricted to the Palaearctic region, while a smaller percentage was found in the Afrotropical (14.3%) and Nearctic (8.6%) regions. The distributions of 77.8% of Iranian scelionids are strictly Palaearctic, while the remaining scelionids were found also in the Nearctic (11.1%), Oriental (11.1%), Afrotropical (8.9%), Australasian (2.2%) and Neotropic regions (2.2%). Considering the sporadic treatment of platygastroids in Iran, it is evident that major parts of the country, including the eastern third, remain unexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]