Bumblebee (Bombus spp.) diversity in urban Finnish landscapes

Sampling

Collection of specimens was performed in July-August 2023 in six Finnish cities. In each city, from five to 13 study locations (Mean±SD: 9±3) were randomly selected to represent different urban microhabitats. Those were highway and road edges, central streets or squares, vicinities of supermarkets, parking slots, railway, or bus stations, walking streets near rivers or lakes, households, and school yards. In each location, it has been identified either a single flower species or a mixture of flowering bumblebee-attractive plants with sufficient abundance of bumblebee visitors. From seven to 10 bumblebees were collected directly from a flower source to one PP-sterile plastic tube during a maximum of 30 min period. After that, the sample with bumblebees (the whole tube) was put on ice and stored in the freezer -20o C until further processing and identification. Species identification was performed with the following identification keys (Parkkinen et al., 2018; Rasmont et al., 2021). Males were identified based on genitalia capsule according to Ødegaard et al. (2015). The separation of species belonging to the cryptic complex Bombus terrestris/B. lucorum was performed with the yellow collar traits as suggested by Parkkinen et al. (2018) and Bossert (2014). References: Bossert S (2014) Recognition and identification of species in the Bombus lucorum-complex – a review and outlook. BioRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/011379 Ødegaard F, Staverløkk A, Staverløkk A, Gjershaug JO, Bengtson R, Mjelde A (2015) Humler i Norge. Kjennetegn, utbredelse og levesett. Trondheim. Norsk institutt for naturforskning, 231 pp. Parkkinen S, Paukkunen J, Teräs I (2018) Suomen Kimalaiset. Jyväskylä. Docendo Oy ja Tekijat, 176 pp. Rasmont P, Ghisbain G, Terzo M, Goulson D (2021) Bumblebees of Europe and neighboring regions. Hymenoptera of Europe 3. Nap Editions, 632 pp.

Method steps

1. Animalia
   rank: kingdom