"A City Abuzz" in the Missouri Conservationist Magazine
Male Bumblebee. Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation.
“I kept looking at the numbers and looking at the species lists and scratching my head,” Camilo said. “It’s not what I’d expected. It’s not what I learned about wildlife in cities from ecology class. But St. Louis has a lot of bees.”
St. Louis has a remarkably high diversity of bees - about 200 of the 450 species found in Missouri reside in the city. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) published an article in the February 2020 issue of the Missouri Conservationist Magazine highlighting the collaborative research between MDC, the Camilo Bee lab, and Dr. Damon Hall at the University of Missouri. The research spans four years of collecting bees at sites around the city, with additional citizen science components to assess residents’ feelings towards bees and planting native plants. For more information on the bees in St. Louis and how you can change your yard to make it more habitable for bees and other pollinators, check out the article linked below.
Related news
