Swedish bumblebee decline? Outcome from a national monitoring program with a five-year interval between surveys
2015
Larsdotter, Annika
Bumblebees are important pollinators that are said to be in decline all over the world. Swedish bumblebees have now been inventoried through a nationwide monitoring program for which data for the first time have been analysed. The aim here was to give an indication of how 35 bumblebee species in Sweden have changed in occurrence over five years interval in the national inventory program. The results given in this report showed that 5 bumblebee species (B. lucorum, B. magnus, B. cryptarum, B. terrestris and B. pascuorum) had declined significantly. Furthermore bumblebees as a group had a significant decline while none of the species had increased. Moreover, declining Swedish bumblebees are species that are common in Europe while species that are declining in Europe do not seem to decline in Sweden. This result was somewhat unexpected, considering the European status of bumblebee species. Furthermore results showed that early emerging species and species living in ubiquitous and open areas had declined. This was also surprising comparing with previous research. Lastly the results showed that two bumblebee species (B. hortorum and B. terrestris) have shifted towards the south within Sweden while none shifted towards north or in a west-east direction.
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