Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration

Bee body size affects their ability to forage, carry pollen, and adapt to environmental conditions. Body size is influenced by environmental factors such as food availability and temperature. As these conditions continue to change, it is crucial to accurately measure body size and determine whether particular body measurements can predict size variation across and within species. Measuring body size is challenging as bees are often small and may be missing body parts. In this study, we examined ten different bee species across three different families. We compared body and wing measurements as proxies for dry weight for both damaged and non-damaged bees. We used fitted vs. residuals and QQ plots to test for normality and linearity, along with performing simple linear regression using R version 4.4.0. We determined that intertegular distance (ITD) and head width to be the most significant predictors of dry weight across species and within most species, suggesting that these measurements may be used to accurately estimate dry weight. We also found that intertegular distance significantly predicted dry mass even in specimens missing body parts, suggesting that this measurement is somewhat robust to specimen damage. These findings contribute to the understanding of the relationship between dry weight and body measurements and provide guidelines for accurately estimating body size within and across species, for a range of applications in ecological research and conservation efforts. Presented at UC Santa Barbara CSEP Summer Colloquium