Aims of Bumble bee national census

Bumblebees are the major pollinators of many crops, as well as wild plants. Pollinators such as bumblebees maintain various plants, and provide humans with a great benefit of producing crops [* note] . However, in recent years, bumblebees have declined worldwide due to the effects of land use change by humans, reduction of floral resources, pesticides, and diseases. In Japan, the invasion of an alien species, Bombus terrestris, has a negative impact on native bumblebee species.
[note: Beneficial functions of ecosystems for humans are called "ecosystem services." Beneficial functions by pollinators are called "pollination services."]

Researchers at Tohoku University and Yamagata University started "Bumble bee national census" to investigate the current distributions of bumblebees in Japan.

Aims of Bumble bee national census are

1. establishing the method of collecting biodiversity data from citizens.
2. enhancing citizens' interest in bumblebee conservation.
3. collecting bumblebee data and estimating their ranges by species distribution models.
4. estimating their range shifts by global climate changes.
5. developing bumblebee conservation plans based on bumblebee data and estimated ranges.

 

Publications

Suzuki-Ohno, Y., Westfechtel, T., Yokoyama, J., Ohno, K., Nakashizuka, T., Kawata, M., and Okatani, T. (2022) Deep learning increases the availability of organism photographs taken by citizens in citizen science programs. Scientific Reports, 12, 1210 [Open Access]

Suzuki-Ohno, Y., Yokoyama, J., Nakashizuka, T. and Kawata, M. (2021) Bee occurrence data collected in citizen science program “Hanamaru-Maruhana national census” in Japan. Ecological Research, 36, 1028-1036 [Data paper]

Suzuki-Ohno, Y., Yokoyama, J., Nakashizuka, T. and Kawata, M. (2020) Estimating possible bumblebee range shifts in response to climate and land cover changes. Scientific Reports, 10, 19622 [Open Access]

Suzuki-Ohno, Y., Yokoyama, J., Nakashizuka, T. and Kawata, M. (2017) Utilization of photographs taken by citizens for estimating bumblebee distributions. Scientific Reports, 7, 11215 [Open Access]