Recent ccber_presentations items

Applying geometric morphometrics to assess morphological divergence in bees

Mon, 2 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Applying geometric morphometrics to assess morphological divergence in bees

Jorge De La Cruz, Charles N. Thrift, Madeleine M. Ostwald, Katja C. Seltmann

University of California Santa Barbara

Bees have relatively conserved wing morphology, but the divergence between groups remains poorly understood and has not been thoroughly quantified. Wing venation characteristics are fundamental for defining and classifying insects, but traditional methods of morphological identification for structures with complex geometries are challenging and time-consuming. This poses a challenge to the ease and accessibility of biodiversity research and studies examining ecological morphotypes. In this study, we employed geometric morphometrics to assess divergence in wing vein morphology across bee taxa. Geometric morphometrics allows for detailed shape analysis of wing structure, which may provide insights into evolutionary...

To Bee or Not to Bee Hairy: A Quantitative Analysis of Pilosity Among Melissodes tepidus Subspecies

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Although California native bees are key pollinators for fruits and crops, they remain understudied compared to the Western honey bee. Examining morphological traits in native bees, such as pilosity, or hairiness, to understand taxonomic variation among species can inform and support conservation efforts. Three subspecies of long-horned bees, Melissodes tepidus timberlakei, M. tepidus yumensis, and M. tepidus tepida, occupy distinct regions across the western United States, but their morphological distinctions remain unclear. Pilosity, or hairiness, is a critical trait for thermoregulation, pollen collection, and species recognition, and may offer key insights into subspecies differentiation. I hypothesize that the three Melissodes tepidus subspecies differ significantly in pilosity coverage and lightness as adaptations to their unique ecological niches and climates. To test this hypothesis, I captured, stacked, and analyzed lateral images (both...

Extended Thoughts about the Extended Specimen

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Digital Extended Specimen Discussion Session presented at BioDigiCon. Biodiversity Digitization Conference (BioDigiCon) was held virtually on 27-29 September 2022 and hosted by iDigBio. https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/BioDigiCon_2022

Digital Extended Specimen Discussion Session organizers and presenters are Libby Ellwood, iDigBio; Katja Seltmann, Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, UC Santa Barbara; Julie Allen, University of Nevada, Reno; Katie Pearson and Ed Gilbert, Symbiota Support Hub; Abby Benson, USGS

A video recording of the presentation is available in Supplementary Materials. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0g99h7kf#supplemental

A Comparison of Reproductive Timing of Macrocystis pyrifera and invasive Sargassum horneri on Catalina Island

Wed, 4 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

9 min Regular Session Talk for the Phycological Society of America (PSA) annual conference 2021

Observations of terrestrial species shifting their reproductive windows in response to climate change begs the question: Could this occur in aquatic environments too? Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, is the foundational species along much of California’s coastlines and islands, but in the aftermath of the 2015-16 El Nino on Catalina Island, it appeared to struggle to regain its dominance in the face of an invasive fucoid Sargassum horneri. As a part of a master’s studying the life history interactions between these two species, I performed monthly population and reproductive surveys, July 2018-August 2019, to address when each species was investing most in biomass, reproductive biomass, reproductive output and if there was a correlation between biomass and output in these species. The annual S. horneri dedicated much of its reproductive effort to...

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Conservation Symposium Presents Kids in Nature: Developing Ecological Literacy Through Educational Community Connections

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The Eighth Annual Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Conservation Symposium for 2020 was themed “Children in Nature: Prescription for a Healthy Planet” and featured UCSB Environmental Studies professor Bridget Lewin, UCSB student Paulina Samosa, and Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration staff member Andy Lanes as panelists that present their experiences with environmental education and the Kids in Nature program along with a short video by Matt Fratus.

Progress toward an inventory of the ants (Hymenoptera_ Formicidae) of Santa Barbara County, California

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

California is a hotbed of floral and faunal species diversity. Santa Barbara County is a 4000 square mile area on the central California coast. It has four distinct ecoregions: Southern California Coast, Southern California Mountains and Valleys, Central California Coast, and Central Valley Coast which include chaparral and coastal sage scrub habitats. Santa Barbara County also includes four of the eight Channel Islands, which has a similar assemblage of habitats as the mainland, and a recent history of invasive ant eradication projects. In 2018, we began to compile an inventory of ant species that occur in the county, obtaining records from online digitized collections including AntWeb, GBIF, Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network, Ecdysis, and iNaturalist. We included our own sampling from North Campus Open Space (NCOS), a recent coastal saltmarsh restoration site, and the Coal Oil Point Reserve (COPR), part of the UC Natural Reserve System. From this effort we found...

BID: A project to share biotic interaction and ecological trait data about bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila)

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We introduce the Bee-Interaction-Database (BID), a project to create an open dataset about bee biotic interactions and other traits. Traits such as floral specialization, behavior, seasonality, parasites, nesting biology, body size and more may be included in the scientific literature, on natural history specimens, or observable in photographs (i.e., iNaturalist). Yet this information is often time-intensive to collect, hidden in the literature, and difficult to combine into one dataset because no uniform method for sharing traits and biotic information is used.
To date, we have extracted close to 3,000 unique bee observations from the scientific literature and integrated them into the Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI - https://www.globalbioticinteractions.org/), online infrastructure for sharing species interaction data. An early observation in our project is that trait data and interaction data are frequently part of the same recorded observation. In addition, authors...