A bee recently rediscovered in Oregon by an Oregon Bee Atlas (OBA) volunteer lives only on volcanoes, where it reproduces on tiny balls of pollen it stuffs into tiny bubbles in volcanic rock found in lava fields.
“You know, a lot of people just think of honeybees,” OBA volunteer Frances Fischer said when she introduced the story, “but there was a really cool species discovered in 2019 ...” The lava hole bee, Atoposmia oregona, only collects pollen from an elite group of four penstemons that grow on volcanic mountains, according to OBA taxonomist Lincoln Best. The female lava hole bee then rolls the pollen from these penstemons into a little ball and inserts it into a tiny hole in a lava bed, formed by a bubble of escaping gas when the lava cooled more than 2,000 years ago. The bee lays an egg on it and seals it away. The egg hatches, and as the larva grows it consumes the pollen. Next year, a new lava hole bee emerges and goes looking for more penstemons.
“So it’s a very specific species that could only exist ... because we have the exact flower that it needs and these lava tubes,” Fischer commented, “and it really just shows how amazing evolution is because this bee has evolved specifically for this place.”
The lava hole bee was first found in Oregon 100 years ago. Also known from California, it had only been seen in Oregon three times, and the last record was 53 years old when OSU Extension Master Melittologist Ellen Watrous collected it in McKenzie pass in 2018, the first year of the Oregon Bee Program. Watrous was unfamiliar with this bee when she happened to sample pollinating bees from a penstemon. Best later confirmed the identification from Watrous’ specimens.
Best also wondered whether the lava hole bee will be able to persist in Oregon in the future. How much of the landscape are they able to live in? “We don’t have any idea ... is it at risk?” Best questioned. “Certainly, all of the Cascades are not covered in lava fields with that penstemon present.”
While the species’ territory could stretch over several hundred miles of mountains, individual mountaintop lava fields are small.
Considering this, Best went back into the mountains to see the species for himself. He not only found the bee, he photographed it pollinating its favored penstemons. “It’s really satisfying to go look for something so obscure,” Best commented, “but once you know how it lives and where it lives and what it does, and when it’s active, you can go up there and sit beside some blooming penstemons in the lava fields, and observe this kind of cool species.”
Stories of rediscovery like this have become more common as volunteers head out into Oregon’s varied habitats to sample bees and identify their catch. It’s a “really fun opportunity to go out into nature, and be able to make these discoveries with the assistance of our lab,” Best said.
With 700-plus native bees in Oregon, there is potential for more new discoveries, he added.
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