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The SDSU Plant Science Department website is maintained by Julia Fausti in accordance with SDSU guidelines.

Last updated 3 November 2009

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SDSU study will inventory Black Hills bees

SDSU researchers will inventory native species of bees in the Black Hills region starting in late 2009. Professor Paul Johnson in SDSU’s Department of Plant Science, an entomologist, said biologists know that at least 100 species of bees are found in the region. But there’s a possibility that perhaps 80 or more other species could be found there.

Knowing what species of bees are there and what plants they are visiting will help biologists better understand the entire Black Hills ecosystem. Johnson said at least 75 to 80 percent of the flowering plants in Black Hills are dependent on bees or some other species of insect for pollination, or the transfer of pollen from the male flower parts to the female flower parts.

For most meadow and prairie plants, including many trees and shrubs, he added, bees are the most important pollinators. Bees are also recognized as valuable indicators of ecological health because of the niche they fill in servicing the plants in a region.

The study looks at the Black Hills eco-region, which also includes some of the surrounding prairie and the Bear Lodge Mountains. SDSU researchers will gather voucher specimens and record detailed information about where and when they were collected. Part of the problem with existing information, Johnson said, is that it sometimes doesn’t give biologists enough information about whether a specimen came from higher elevations in the Black Hills, or from down at the edge of the prairie. That doesn’t tell much about the plant communities a species of bee is using. A grant of nearly $50,000 from the S.D. Department of Game, Fish and Parks is funding the three-year study.

~SDSU News Release, August 2009