the sandstone bee project
Please visit this page if you want to report new nest sites!
This project began when Frank Parker discovered hundreds of densely-packed nests drilled into a sandstone monolith near Goblin Valley, Utah, seven years before I was born. After collecting bees and their nests, and even rearing them out in the lab, the study remained unpublished. It was not until I independently discovered another nest site that Frank’s work, hidden away in a drawer for decades, was recognized for its importance.
Together, Frank and I have described this new species (Anthophora pueblo) and begun investigating the underlying trade-offs driving this unusual behavior, but much work remains to be done. To this end, I have recently found an additional 50+ sandstone nest sites, a few of which house tens of thousands of nests. These new sites will enable me to study the ecological and evolutionary effects of narrow resource limitation, and the conservation implications for this species.
Additional future projects in this system include:
1. Testing sandstone’s insulative ability in comparison to alternative substrates, and whether or not such differences matter for the species in this system.
2. Observing and quantifying the ways in which the two excavating species of this system interact (Anthophora pueblo and Anthophora peritomae).
This project began when Frank Parker discovered hundreds of densely-packed nests drilled into a sandstone monolith near Goblin Valley, Utah, seven years before I was born. After collecting bees and their nests, and even rearing them out in the lab, the study remained unpublished. It was not until I independently discovered another nest site that Frank’s work, hidden away in a drawer for decades, was recognized for its importance.
Together, Frank and I have described this new species (Anthophora pueblo) and begun investigating the underlying trade-offs driving this unusual behavior, but much work remains to be done. To this end, I have recently found an additional 50+ sandstone nest sites, a few of which house tens of thousands of nests. These new sites will enable me to study the ecological and evolutionary effects of narrow resource limitation, and the conservation implications for this species.
Additional future projects in this system include:
1. Testing sandstone’s insulative ability in comparison to alternative substrates, and whether or not such differences matter for the species in this system.
2. Observing and quantifying the ways in which the two excavating species of this system interact (Anthophora pueblo and Anthophora peritomae).