IABIN - Pollinators Thematic Network

The Coordinating Institution for the Pollinators Thematic Network is a Consortium leads by the Pollinator Partnership (USA). The members of the consortium are:

• Pollinator Partnership (USA)
• University of Sao Paulo (Brazil)
• Centro de Refer (Brazil)
• National Biological Information Infrastructure, NBII (USA)

The action of pollinators ensures, for many sexually reproducing species, plant reproduction and the maintenance of genetic variability that plant populations need to survive and continue to evolve. There are hundreds of thousands of pollinators such as beetles, flies, birds, bats, wasps, ants, etc. Bees, however, are the most important pollinators of wild and cultivated plants.
Information on pollinators taxonomy is scattered and often unavailable. An electronic Global Species Database (GSD) is needed as a linking element to facilitate the integration of biological, ecological and agricultural information, in an efficient retrieval system.
An initial goal of this subcomponent is to deliver the electronic multilingual New World Bee Catalog, contributing approximately 30,000 names (valid names and synonyms) to a Bee GSD. The effort will build on the integration of existing local datasets such as the checklist of bee species from Brazil and regional checklists such as Moure's Catalog of Neotropical Bees, with bee databases from North America. The effort will be developed aiming at future coordination with relevant regional initiatives (Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania) towards the development of the World Bee Catalog. This catalog will be developed using IABIN standards, insuring interoperability with the Thematic Networks on specimen, species and ecosystems, and it will support IABIN's work with ITIS.
Other activities that will be carried out under this subcomponent are:

• Development of an online directory of experts;
• Expansion of the Bee Catalog to include non-bee pollinators.

The Pollinator Catalog will be integrated with the Specimen, Species and Ecosystem Thematic Network, thus providing the user a valuable tool that will address pollinator issues such as habitat loss, ecosystem functions, natural history, etc.