Native bees from the state of Nuevo Leon: filling information gaps in northeast Mexico

Native bees are one of the most important insects in any ecosystem, they are responsible for pollination of most flowering plants, have a key position in the trophic chain and some species produce useful products to humans; however, knowledge about native bees in many regions is still poor or totally absent, increasing the growing concern worldwide that many local populations could be disappearing like Apis mellifera in some cases. Knowledge for native bees in Mexico is focused mainly in tropical species from south and center regions, leaving north and eastern region practically unexplored, this is why the main goal of this study is to identify what native bees are present in the state of Nuevo Leon, along with the vegetation and plat species they visit. Methodology was based on bibliographical and data base revision to find historical records for the state, while field work was done using net and color pan-traps to collect bee specimens. A total of 35 sampling localities in 20 municipalities were visited. More than 4,000 bee specimens were collected, 86% in pan-traps and 14% using entomological net; bee families obtained are Andrenidae, Apidae, Colletidae, Halictidae and Megachilidae, being the most diverse Apidae with at least 64 species. Bees were recorded at 45 plant species in 19 families, being Fabaceae and Asteraceae the most frequently preferred; vegetation types were bees were most collected were desert shrub and man-induced vegetation. Before this study, literature reported only 100 bee species for Nuevo Leon, which indicates not only a low diversity but the lack of formal studies in this region, the present work rises the number of records for the state, and the specimens collected can now be considered as the starting point for a new reference collection to be used by national and international researches.