Bees of Puget Sound Marginal Lands: 7 Year Study —by Evan Sugden & Will Peterman

Yes, this meeting is on the Memorial Day holiday! It was convenient for the speaker, and we did an informal poll of members at a previous meeting who all said they wouldn't dream of traveling on such a high traffic day! So we hope you'll be able attend, it should be fascinating!

Evan says: "We surveyed bees at three lowland, marginal sites on the periphery of Seattle and Everett for a total of seven years from 2014 through 2020. The bee diversity of this habitat is surprisingly high, approaching 139 overall. We recorded a number of new species collection records at the State and County levels, documented dominant species, and have listed both least commonly collected species and those that are widespread. A statistical deep dive revealed that the community structure of our sites differed, suggesting that factors beyond our ad hoc land characterization determine what bees are to be found where and when. Our work will be a contribution to the Washington Bee Atlas project, where data and most specimens will reside."

Scarabs' new Zoom Czar, Matt Neumann, has created a special Zoom link you can click to get to each month's Scarabs session, regardless if the specific meeting ID changes. You should get this link (or it will become visible) if you RSVP here (passcode is 816620). If you attend by phone, you'll need the old-fashioned numerical Zoom code, and anyone doing that should refer to their print newsletter (or, if not a subscribing member, contact us well ahead of time please!). Go to Zoom not long before the meeting starts, otherwise the link may not be active. And if anything about this new system misfires, tell us so we can trouble-shoot for next time!