Project Number: 5428-21000-013-25
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Jun 15, 2010
End Date: May 31, 2013

Objective:
The objective of this collaborative project is to make georeferenced, bee specimen data from the U.S. National Pollinating Insects Collection, USDA-ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory, and four other major U.S. collections of bees, available to the research community.

Approach:
Work will focus on data cleaning of the existing specimen level database of bees from the U.S. National Pollinating Insects Collection, data capture of identified specimens that are not yet digitized, and georeferencing all localities. Specimens will be given unique matrix code numbers, label data will be entered into a relational database with authority files for bee species and plant taxa. Georeferenced bee data will be provided with locality, date, and floral associations except for rare plant taxa.