Forward to the north: two Euro-Mediterranean bumblebee species now cross the Arctic Circle

Summary

In recent decades, several animal and plant species have been in regression (population size decrease and geographical distribution shrinking). This loss of biodiversity can be due to various factors such as the destruction and fragmentation of habitat, urban development, pesticides or climate change. However, some species benefit from these changes and expand their distribution. Here we report observations (in 2013 and 2014) of two Euro-Mediterranean bumblebee species: Bombus terrestris for the first time and Bombus lapidarius, north of the Arctic Circle in Fennoscandia.

Résumé

Ces dernières décennies, de nombreuses espèces animales et végétales sont en régression autant d’un point de vue de leur distribution qu’au niveau de leur effectif de population. Cette perte de biodiversité peut être due à différents facteurs comme la destruction et la fragmentation de l’habitat, le développement urbain, les pesticides ou encore le changement climatique. Néanmoins, certaines espèces profitent de ces perturbations pour étendre leur distribution. C’est ainsi que pour la première fois, deux espèces Euro-Méditerranéennes de bourdons (Bombus terrestris et Bombus lapidarius) ont été observées en 2013 et 2014 en Fennoscandie au-delà du Cercle Arctique.

Keywords:

• Bombus terrestris
• biogeography
• climate change
• Fennoscandia
• heat wave

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Abisko and Tarfala scientific stations (Sweden) for their welcome and their help in material collection. We acknowledge all the people that helped us in our journey to the Abisko and Tarfala stations: Peter Läkare and Gunhild Ninis Rosqvist (University of Stockholm), Magnus Augner and Linnéa Wanhatalo (Abisko Station), Hannele Savela (Oulu University, Interact administration), Josefine Strand and Therese Wikström (Länsstyrelsen i Norrbottens län Naturvårdsenheten, Luleå). The research has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 244090, STEP Project (Status and Trends of European Pollinators, www.step-project.net) and from the INTERACT FP-7 EU project. Special thanks to M. Franzen, Alrun Siebenkäs (UFZ, Halle) for their help. We would like to thank both reviewers (S.P.M Roberts and J.-F. Voisin) for their insightful comments on the paper, as these comments led us to an improvement of the work. Thomas Lecocq has been working as a post-doc in the BELBEES project funded by the Belgian Scientific Politic (BELSPO, BR/132/A1/BELBEES).