Pierre Rasmont

• Prof. Dr.
• Head of Department at University of Mons

The importance of flower visitors for ecosystem resilience and crop production underscores the need to address the current decline of flower visitors worldwide. Farming Alternative Pollinators (FAP), economic and ecological benefits of fields hosting various marketable habitat enhancement plants, developed for flower visitors protection in low- and...

Bees are a crucial group of insects for terrestrial ecosystem functioning, but numerous threats from human activities challenge their conservation. Knowledge of the spatial distribution of bees is key to proposing efficient strategies for their conservation. In this chapter, we propose a synthesis of the biogeography of the European bee fauna. We d...

Updated checklist of bees of mainland France (Hymenoptera: Apocrita: Apoidea). - The checklist of bees from metropolitan France is presented here, with an update of the previous checklist published in 1995 which included 865 species. A total of 150 species have been added to this previous checklist, 114 thanks to new distributional records and 36 d...

A new species of bumble bee-mimicking brood parasitic bee, Tetralonioidella mimetica Orr & Zhu, sp. nov., is described from China. The systematic placement of this species was initially challenging but was resolved using a combination of phylogenomic and COI barcode analyses, which strongly support the new species as a member of the genus Tetraloni...

Integrative taxonomy of a new species of a bumble bee-mimicking brood parasitic bee, Tetralonioidella mimetica (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Apidae), investigated through phylogenomics. Journal of Hymenoptera Research 97: 755-780. https://doi. Abstract A new species of bumble bee-mimicking brood parasitic bee, Tetralonioidella mimetica Orr & Zhu, sp. nov....

Evidence is widespread that many species of Bombus are in population and biogeographical decline in response to adverse effects of global climate warming. The complex interactions of the mechanisms at the root of the declines are poorly understood. Among the numerous factors, we posit that heat stress in the nests could play a key role in the decli...

Wild bees are facing many environmental challenges that are reshaping their distributions and even causing extinctions. One of the common threats is climate change leading to a higher frequency of extreme climatic events such as heat waves. We focused on the bee fauna of the eastern Mediterranean country of Lebanon and assessed intra- and interspec...

A bee specimen identified as Anthophora planca Pérez, 1895, from France, was discovered in collections of Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. This male specimen presents a morphology that does not conform to any of the Anthophora Latreille, 1803 species known from France, or indeed from Europe. After careful examination, it cannot be identified as Antho...

Introducing www.beefall.org an online tool to help in "Understanding and addressing shortfalls in European wild bee data". Our understanding of bee diversity and ecology is hindered by data deficits and knowledge gaps. BeeFall uses a digital collection of ecological data on European wild bees to map important gaps in our knowledge. This includes wh...

Understanding and reversing biodiversity decline in the Anthropocene requires robust data on species taxonomic identity, distribution, ecology, and population trends. Data deficits hinder biodiversity assessments and conservation , and despite major advances over the past few decades, our understanding of bee diversity, decline and distribution in...

Insect pollinators are declining worldwide due to many challenges and several approaches have been implemented to mitigate their loss. Farming with Alternative Pollinators (FAP) uses marketable habitat enhancement plants (MHEP) that yield substantial benefits for farmers from the first year. Studies with small-scale farmers have shown that FAP sust...

Notes about spontaneous nesting of bumblebees’ queens in Belgium (Hymenoptera: Apidae). - To develop a rearing system for different wild bumblebee species, we experimented techniques for spontaneous nesting of wild queens. Our nest devices, which contain mouse litter as substrate, are used to attract wild bumblebee queens in search of a nest and to...

This is a FAP manual for farmers of large fields in three regions with different climates, explaining threats to wild pollinators and natural enemies, presenting several important wild pollinators and their habitat requirements, and providing FAP planting instructions to protect them.

Cold-adapted species endangered by global change are crucial cases for understanding range dynamics and its interface with conservation. In view of climate change and their sensitivity, Alpine insects should modify their distribution by reducing ranges, while being unable of sufficient displacements and mostly moving uphill. To test these hypothese...

Visitation by wild bee species alongside managed pollinators is necessary to ensure consistent yields and fruit quality in apple fields. Wild bee species are vulnerable to several environmental changes. Climate change is expected to lead to broad-scale changes to wild bee distributions that will impact the service they provide as crop pollinators....

Habitat degradation and climate change are globally acting as pivotal drivers of wildlife collapse, with mounting evidence that this erosion of biodiversity will accelerate in the following decades1–3. Here, we quantify the past, present and future ecological suitability of Europe for bumblebees, a threatened group of pollinators ranked among the h...

Pollinators play a crucial role in ecosystems globally, ensuring the seed production of most flowering plants. They are threatened by global changes and knowledge of their distribution at the national and continental levels is needed to implement efficient conservation actions, but this knowledge is still fragmented and/or difficult to access. As a...

At a time when nature conservation has become essential to ensure the long-term sustainability of our environment, it is widely acknowledged that conservation actions must be implemented within a solid taxonomic framework. In preparation for the upcoming update of the IUCN Red List, we here update the European checklist of the wild bees (sensu the...

Aim: Wild bees still face striking shortfalls in knowledge of biodiversity in key regions of the world. This includes Europe, where despite a long tradition of data gathering, the continental scale distribution patterns of wild bees have not been systematically analysed to date. This study aims to characterise large-scale biodiversity patterns to:...

The presence of pollinating insects in crop fields is an essential factor for agricultural production and pollinator conservation. Agricultural intensification has been identified as a driver of pollinator decline over the last decades and challenges the efficiency of pollination. Several approaches are used to support pollinators and their ecosyst...

The industrial backbone of the Belgian province of Hainaut is well known for its high level of anthropization. The objectives of this study were to conduct an inventory of wild bee species living in these artificial landscapes and to locate biodiversity hotspots among different types of environments such as parks, quarries, brownfields, meadows, an...

Several management practices have been suggested to mitigate the global pollinator decline in agro‐ecosystems, including wildflower strips and Farming with Alternative Pollinators (FAP). FAP proposes to dedicate 25% of the field area to seed Marketable Habitat Enhancement Plants (MHEP) around the main crop, occupying 75% of the field. However, wild...

Agroecosystems are often impoverished ecosystems, but they can host diverse communities of insects which provide ecosystem services. Specifically, crops may benefit from insect pollinators that increase their quantity and quality of yields. Basic knowledge is still needed regarding the identity, diversity, abundance, and ecology of insect pollinato...

Pollinators are threatened worldwide and strategies and measures to support their conservation are proliferating. Among them, the approach “Farming with Alternative Pollinators” (FAP) aims to support pollinators by seeding strips of pollinator-attracting cultivated plants surrounding the crops, and simultaneously providing income to the farmer. In...

Food production is highly dependent on pollination services provided by insects; 75% of the leading global food crops need animals for successful production. Pollinators, including managed and wild bees, are declining in many parts of the world. The loss of natural habitats providing nesting sites is considered as one of the main factors driving th...

Pollinators are facing declines at a global level. One of the main factors driving this decline is insufficient access to floral resources due to habitat loss and degradation that can affect both diet generalist species as well as those with more restricted floral preferences. Here we evaluated the effect of a novel mitigation strategy in agricultu...

See our report on the latest findings about the bumblebees of the West-Palearctic here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358782211_Bumblebee_Sub_Group_Annual_Report_2021

Little information is known about the nesting behaviour of arctic and boreal bumblebee species. The arctic is an environment with hard eco-climatic constraints notably for bumblebees. Here, we describe the nest of a common circum boreal species, Bombus lapponicus. A natural nest was discovered from an abandoned rodent nest (Microtus oeconomus) at 5...

This guide is the third volume in a series on Hymenoptera of Europe. After a short introduction to this order of insects, the book provides a wealth of information on the bumblebees of Europe, northern Africa, the Caucasus and the Middle-East, covering the most recent scientific advances. A key allows the identification of the 14 subgenera of bumbl...

Ce guide constitue le troisième volume d'une série sur les Hyménoptères d'Europe. Après une brève présentation de cet ordre d'insectes, l'ouvrage se consacre à une synthèse des connaissances sur les bourdons d'Europe, d'Afrique du nord, du Caucase et du Moyen-Orient en tenant compte des avancées scientifiques les plus récentes. Une première clé est...

Climate change is related to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves. In insect pollinators, heat exposure is associated with direct physiological perturbations, and in several species, could lead to a decrease of fitness related to a decrease in fertility. Here we developed a new experimental protocol in cont...

While the Arctic and boreal bumblebee fauna is increasingly studied worldwide, information is missing about the genetic connections between circum-boreal populations of some widespread species, especially those living in remote regions like North-East Siberia and Alaska. Here, we study one of the most common boreal bumblebee species, Bombus (Pyrobo...

Low- and middle-income countries cannot afford reward-based land sparing for wildflower strips to combat pollinator decline. Two small-grant projects assessed, if an opportunity-cost saving land-sharing approach, Farming with Alternative Pollinators, can provide a method-inherent incentive to motivate farmers to protect pollinators without external...

Bumble bees (Bombus) are a group of eusocial bees with a strongly generalised feeding pattern, collecting pollen from many different botanical families. Though predominantly generalists, some bumble bee species seem to have restricted dietary choices. It is unclear whether restricted diets in bumble bees are inherent or a function of local conditio...

The study of wild bees has markedly increased in recent years due to their importance as pollinators of crops and wild plants, and this interest has been accentuated by increasing evidence of global declines in their abundance and species richness. Though best studied in Europe and North America, knowledge on the current state of wild bees is scarc...

• Against the context of global wildlife declines, targeted mitigation strategies have become critical to preserve what remains of biodiversity. However, the effective development of conservation tools in order to counteract these changes relies on unambiguous taxonomic determination and delineation. • In this study, we focus on an endemic bumblebe...

This is a FAP manual for farmers in semi-arid regions, explaining threats to wild pollinators in such regions of Morocco, presenting several important wild pollinators and their habitat requirements and FAP planting instructions to protect them.

This is a FAP manual for farmers in oasis, explaining threats to wild pollinators in such regions of Morocco, presenting several important wild pollinators and their habitat requirements and FAP planting instructions to protect them.

This is a FAP manual for farmers in mountainous regions, explaining threats to wild pollinators in such regions of Morocco, presenting several important wild pollinators and their habitat requirements and FAP planting instructions to protect them.

This is a FAP manual for farmers in regions with adequate rainfall, explaining threats to wild pollinators in such regions of Morocco, presenting several important wild pollinators and their habitat requirements and FAP planting instructions to protect them.

Climate plays a key role in shaping population trends and determining the geographic distribution of species because of limits in species’ thermal tolerance. An evaluation of species tolerance to temperature change can therefore help predict their potential spatial shifts and population trends triggered by ongoing global warming. We assessed inter‐...

Multisource approaches in taxonomy gather different lines of evidence in order to draw strongly supported taxonomic conclusions and constitute the basis of integrative taxonomy. In the case of overlooked taxa with disjunct distributions for which sampling is more challenging, integrative approaches help to propose stable hypotheses at the species a...

Many wild bee species are declining globally. To design efficient mitigation strategies to slow down or reverse these trends, we urgently need to better understand their basic ecological requirements. In this context, we studied two specialist species for which ecological data are scarce: Dasypoda visnaga and Dasypoda maura. We provide for the firs...

See our report on the latest findings about the bumblebees of the West-Palearctic here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349339582_IUCN_Bumblebee_Specialist_Group_Annual_Report_2020. STRUCTURE: (1) Data records for the bumblebees of the West-Palearctic region, (2) Taxonomy of the West-Palearctic bumblebees, (3) Global change and conservati...

Climate change is related to an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves. It is well established that such events may worsen the current world‐wide biodiversity decline. In many organisms, heat stress is associated with direct physiological perturbations and could lead to a decrease of fitness. In contrast to endother...

Morocco is a well known hot-spot of biodiversity in the Mediterranean basin. While some taxa like vascular plants are relatively well recorded, important groups of pollinators like bees are still understudied. This article presents an updated checklist of the bee species of Morocco and includes a summary of global and regional distribution of each...

Morocco is a well known hot-spot of biodiversity in the Mediterranean basin. While some taxa like vascular plants are relatively well recorded, important groups of pollinators like bees are still understudied. This article presents an updated checklist of the bee species of Morocco and includes a summary of global and regional distribution of each...

Aim Projections of biodiversity scenarios often rely solely on climate change to inform species distribution shifts in the future. Land use projections are rarely used due to their unavailability and, when available, are often at coarse spatial and thematic resolutions, making them unsuitable to capture fine scale habitat suitability. This study ai...

Aim: Among the numerous anthropogenic pressures threatening biodiversity, habitat destruction and climate change are pointed to as dominant. In response, a number of mitigation strategies are elaborated to save endangered living organisms. However, the taxonomic level and geographical extent at which conservation strategies should be designed and i...

Morocco has a diverse bee fauna, but one that has also been relatively understudied in recent years. Here a revision of the species-rich genus Andrena is presented that reveals eleven new species for science and substantially improves our understanding of North African Andrena. From Morocco, Andrena (Aciandrena) semiadesus Wood, sp. nov., Andrena (...

Bumblebees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: genus Bombus Latreille, 1802) constitute an important group of pollinators for many wild plants and crops in north temperate regions and South America. Although knowledge of these insects has been increasing over the last decades, some geographic areas remain poorly studied and additions to the knowledge of their fa...

Global change affects species by modifying their abundance, spatial distribution, and activity period. The challenge is now to identify the respective drivers of those responses and to understand how those responses combine to affect species assemblages and ecosystem functioning. Here we correlate changes in occupancy and mean flight date of 205 wi...

Lebanon has a rich but chronically understudied bee fauna. As part of ongoing efforts to better understand bee diversity in Lebanon we present a critical revision of the speciose genus Andrena based primarily on the examination of specimens collected from contemporary surveys, as well as previously undetermined material from museum collections. And...

We are currently facing a large decline in bee populations worldwide. Who are the winners and losers? Generalist bee species, notably those able to shift their diet to new or alternative floral resources, are expected to be among the least vulnerable to environmental change. However, studies of interactions between bees and plants over large tempor...

Bumblebees are undergoing strong declines in Europe caused by habitat loss and fragmentation, agricultural intensification, and climate change. Long-term records are necessary to estimate population trends precisely and to propose appropriate mitigation strategies. Based on an original database of 173,788 specimens from museum collections, scientif...

Phenotypic polymorphism can constitute an inherent challenge for species delimitation. This issue is exemplified in bumble bees ( Bombus ), where species can exhibit high colour variation across their range, but otherwise exhibit little morphological variation to distinguish them from close relatives. We examine the species status of one of the mos...

West Palearctic bumblebees are common wildflowers and crop pollinators that are well studied in their central and northern distribution ranges, but fewer information is available on their southern distribution areas. Lebanon falls on the southern limit of their distribution and no published information is available on the local bumblebees. Our stud...

Recent improvements in taxonomy considers multiple operational criteria. The integrative taxonomy provides a methodological framework merging these multisource approaches. Bumblebees are considered as a uniform group where their taxonomy remains one of the most difficult. Here, we investigate the taxonomic statuses inside a monophyletic group inclu...

Thermotolerance has often been linked to species distribution for a diverse range of organisms. In the context of climate change, assessing heat resistance ability is useful for understanding potential future range shifts and the physiological response of populations. As bumblebee (Bombus) populations have been declining for several decades with se...

Les pollinisateurs ne s'arrêtent pas aux frontières. Travaillons ensemble pour les préserver! Ce Plan d’Action en faveur des pollinisateurs sauvages de Belgique et des Haut-de-France a été co-construit avec les acteurs du territoire dans le cadre du projet Interreg « SAPOLL - Sauvons nos pollinisateurs » pour une durée de 10 ans (2019-2029). Il e...

Bestuivers kennen geen grenzen. Laat ons samenwerken om hen te behouden! Dit tienjarig (2019-2029) actieplan voor alle wilde bestuivers werd opgesteld samen met alle partijen in de regio in het kader van het Interreg-project SAPOLL (Samenwerken voor pollinators – Sauvons nog pollinisateurs). Wetenschappelijke kennis, een uitgebreide inventarisati...

Cet ouvrage richement illustré vous amène à la découverte des bourdons de la région transfrontalière franco-belge. Il présente et discute deux siècles d’observations, dont de nombreuses données récentes et des informations inédites dans certaines zones peu prospectées. Vous découvrirez les 31 espèces de bourdons de cette région et leur écologie da...

Since the beginning of taxonomy, species have been described based on morphology, but the advent of using semio-chemicals and genetics has led to the discovery of cryptic species (i.e. morphologically similar species). When a new cryptic species is described, earlier type specimens have to be re-evaluated, although this process can be challenging a...

The Belgian Red List of bees is an assessment of the conservation status of Belgian bee species according to the IUCN guidelines for application of the international IUCN Red List criteria at regional and national levels. It identifies the extinction threat to species at this geographical scale. These results can be used to implement conservation a...

This guide is the first volume of a series on Hymenoptera of Europe. In its first part a general presentation is given on their morphology, ecology, evolution and methods for establishing a collection of specimens. We also propose a key for the identification of all superfamilies recorded on the European continent. The guide then develops a compr...