Documenting Persistence of Most Eastern North American Bee Species (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila) to 1990-2009.

The article discusses a study on the persistence of all bee species known historically from eastern North America by bringing together scientific expertise and data from bee collections which resulted in a list of species that have and have not been detected in the past two decades. A list of bees happening east of the Mississippi River in the U.S. and east of Manitoba in Canada was extracted from Discover Life Bee Species Guide and World Checklist made up of 770 species. The list of undetected species are largely made of bees that were uncommon before 1990 which are hard to identify, have parasitic life styles and limited distributions. The results emphasize the need for additional taxonomic and life history studies of many groups as well as the need to use diverse sampling methods.