Regional red list of Irish bees

Abstract

In 2003 the Higher Education Authority awarded funding for a three year project on\nthe conservation of native Irish bees under their North-South programme for\ncollaborative research. This work was undertaken by Dr. Úna Fitzpatrick and Dr.\nMark Brown in the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and by Mr.\nTomás Murray and Dr. Rob Paxton in the School of School of Biological Sciences,\nQueen’s University Belfast.\nOne important element of this research has been the documentation of the\nconservation status of native bees in Ireland.\nA three-step sequential process has been used to document the status of each of the\nnative species, indicate the conservation action required, and highlight those species\nof most importance from a conservation perspective:\n(1) Identification of the threatened species using internationally recognized\nmethodology - production of an IUCN regional red list for the island of\nIreland.\n(2) Documentation of the total conservation actions required for the assessed\ngroup - completed IUCN conservation action authority files for threatened,\nnear threatened and data deficient species.\n(3) Conversion from the regional red list to a national list of conservation priority\nspecies\nThis summary report contains the Regional Red List of Irish bees, IUCN conservation\nactions authority files for all threatened, near threatened and data deficient species in\nthe red list, and a list of national conservation priority species.