Yasemin Güler

Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Apiformes) have got directly an important role in the pollination of many agricultural crops. There are also their indirect effects in obtaining meat and meat products, monitoring the health of ecosystems, and preventing erosion. Although honeybee is the most known and the commonest pollinator species, it is seriously under threat in the world due to the colony collapse. Therefore, countries are urgently in search of alternative pollinator species. Herein, the countries knowing and protecting bee fauna have an advantage according to the incognisant countries. The faunistic studies regarding to the bees are not also enough in Turkey. The Western Blacksea Region of Turkey is an important zoogeographic area, because it was a bridge for some fauna elements and it was a refuge for some species in different geological periods. But total number of species belonging to the family Megachilidae and Halictidae recorded from Kastamonu and Bartın provinces up to now are only 13. If both families are considered to be represented by a total of 761 species in Turkey, this number is rather low and a more detailed study should be carried out in the region.

Morphological identification is still a method frequently used due to being speed and cheap in the whole world. But it sometimes remains incapable the reasons like a sibling species and interspecies variations. In the recent years, the DNA barcoding method is used as the solution of that cases. This method uses differences in DNA sequences of small genomic fragments of the organisms as biological barcodes in providing identification of species. This small genomic region is mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene (COI).

This project will be carried out between the years 2017 and 2019. It is aimed to identify Megachilidae and Halictidae species of Bartın and Kastamonu provinces with morphological and molecular methods. To create standard DNA barcodes, to summarise distributions of the species with maps and to reveal bee-plant relationship are planned. Many species of these families will be searched for the first time as part of the DNA barcoding method in our country. Besides, the data obtained from the study are expected to contribute to biodiversity of our country and to turn into international articles.

Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock

2017-2019