Regional red list of Irish bees

In 2003 the Higher Education Authority awarded funding for a three year project on
the conservation of native Irish bees under their North-South programme for
collaborative research. This work was undertaken by Dr. Úna Fitzpatrick and Dr.
Mark Brown in the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin and by Mr.
Tomás Murray and Dr. Rob Paxton in the School of School of Biological Sciences,
Queen’s University Belfast.
One important element of this research has been the documentation of the
conservation status of native bees in Ireland.
A three-step sequential process has been used to document the status of each of the
native species, indicate the conservation action required, and highlight those species
of most importance from a conservation perspective:
(1) Identification of the threatened species using internationally recognized
methodology - production of an IUCN regional red list for the island of
Ireland.
(2) Documentation of the total conservation actions required for the assessed
group - completed IUCN conservation action authority files for threatened,
near threatened and data deficient species.
(3) Conversion from the regional red list to a national list of conservation priority
species
This summary report contains the Regional Red List of Irish bees, IUCN conservation
actions authority files for all threatened, near threatened and data deficient species in
the red list, and a list of national conservation priority species.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service Red Lists are available online at http://www.npws.ie/publications/redlists/