Konrad's Bumblebee (Bombus konradini)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 232530334

Can we save a high-altitude narrow-range bumblebee facing extinction? Applying practical ways to enhance habitat quality

The ultimate goal is to enhance the habitat quality for the species and design long-lasting conservation measures. The project will base on an existing baseline of information on ecology, distribution, conservation status mainly from the Literature and experience. Based on this knowledge, we aim to define areas of potential intervention and corridors connecting them based on habitat requirement and probability of species detection by studying the distribution patterns in current and future climate scenario and habitat and by involving the staff of the protected areas to find suitable putative areas of intervention. Secondly, as high elevations in the Apennine are severely affected by practices as overgrazing and trampling, we aim to mitigate with the ongoing threats with field actions: setting plots excluding grazers and artificial nests in areas of known occurrence and based on the species’ biology knowledge defined in the aim presented above, followed by monitoring activities to assess the efficacy. A third objective is to create a conservation plan with guidelines applicable a larger scales for national and regional parks, and to crate an educational campaign for increasing administration, public and farmer sensitivity towards the endangered bumblebee.