beelibre.lu - Luxembourg’s open library of wild bee species profiles, pollen data, DNA barcodes and bibliographic references

The ultimate goal of the beelibre project is to provide a kind of “one-stop-shop” online resource, hosting within a single multi-lingual website (beelibre.lu) relevant information concerning the wild bee fauna of Luxembourg. This website will provide free and immediate access to information on the taxonomy, natural history and geographical distribution of the over 350 species of wild bees species recorded in Luxembourg. For this purpose, four sections (a.k.a “libraries”) are hosted within the website: i) a database of high-quality images taken from live bees and museum specimens (for morpho-taxonomic identification and outreach); ii) a bibliographic repository of all nationally relevant publications (for metadata analysis and knowledge exchange), incl. short summaries; iii) a pollen inventory pilot experiment aiming to uncover potential ecological interactions between regional host flowering plants and their associated wild bee pollinators and iv) a DNA barcode reference library of wild bee species from Luxembourg currently lacking reference material in BOLD systems (for molecular taxonomic identification). This initiative to produce and transfer knowledge about wild bees is aligned with Luxembourg's national action plan for pollinators and contributes directly to reducing knowledge shortfalls in relation to European bees. Therefore, all materials will be freely available to both researchers and the general public, socialising scientific knowledge to a wider audience and raising awareness on national pollinator biodiversity. With this initiative, we aim to provide a space that combines past efforts with current technology, building a platform that can be used to further assist and develop national conservation strategies protecting the wild bee fauna of Luxembourg.