In recent decades, many bumble bee species have declined due to changes in habitat, climate, and pressures from pathogens, pesticides, and introduced species. The western bumble bee (Bombus occidentalis), once common throughout western North America, is a species of concern and will be considered for listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We attempt to improve alignment of data collection and research with USFWS needs to consider redundancy, resiliency, and representation in the upcoming species status assessment. We reviewed existing data and literature on B. occidentalis, highlighting information gaps and priority topics for research. Priorities include increased knowledge of trends, basic information on several life‐history stages, and improved understanding of the relative and interacting effects of stressors on population trends, especially the effects of pathogens, pesticides, climate change, and habitat loss. An understanding of how and where geographic range extent has changed for the two subspecies of B. occidentalis is also needed. We outline data that could be easily collected in other research projects that would increase their utility for understanding range‐wide trends of bumble bees. We modeled the overall trend in occupancy from 1998 to 2018 of Bombus occidentalis within the continental United States using existing data. The probability of local occupancy declined by 93% over 21 yr from 0.81 (95% CRI = 0.43, 0.98) in 1998 to 0.06 (95% CRI = 0.02, 0.16) in 2018. The decline in occupancy varied spatially by landcover and other environmental factors. Detection rates vary in both space and time, but peak detection across the continental United States occurs in mid‐July. We found considerable spatial gaps in recent sampling, with limited sampling in many regions, including most of Alaska, northwestern Canada, and the southwestern United States. We therefore propose a sampling design to address these gaps to best inform the ESA species status assessment through improved assessment of how the spatial distribution of stressors influences occupancy changes. Finally, we request involvement via data sharing, participation in occupancy sampling with repeated visits to distributed survey sites, and complementary research to address priorities outlined in this paper.

中文翻译：

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西方大黄蜂：美国大陆的衰落和范围广泛的信息鸿沟

近几十年来，由于栖息地，气候变化以及病原体，农药和引进物种带来的压力，许多大黄蜂物种有所减少。西部大黄蜂（Bombus occidentalis）曾经在整个北美西部很常见，是备受关注的物种，根据濒危物种法（ESA），美国鱼类和野生动物服务局（USFWS）会将其考虑列入清单。我们试图通过USFWS改进数据收集和研究的一致性，需要在即将进行的物种状态评估中考虑冗余性，弹性和代表性。我们回顾了有关西方油菜的现有数据和文献，突出显示信息空白和研究重点。优先事项包括对趋势的了解，有关多个生命历史阶段的基本信息，以及对应激源对人口趋势的相对和相互作用影响的了解，尤其是对病原体，农药，气候变化和栖息地丧失的影响的了解。还需要了解西方双歧杆菌两个亚种的地理范围程度如何以及在何处发生了变化。我们概述了可以在其他研究项目中轻松收集的数据，这些数据将增加它们在了解大范围蜜蜂的趋势方面的效用。我们对1998年至2018年西方熊蜂的总体入住趋势进行了建模使用现有数据在美国大陆范围内。21年内当地居民的入住率下降了93％，从1998年的0.81（95％CRI = 0.43，0.98）下降到2018年的0.06（95％CRI = 0.02，0.16）。土地使用率的下降因土地覆盖和其他环境而异因素。检出率在空间和时间上都不同，但美国大陆的检出峰值发生在7月中旬。我们在最近的抽样中发现了相当大的空间差距，在许多地区（包括阿拉斯加的大部分地区，加拿大西北部和美国西南部）的抽样数量有限。因此，我们提出了一种抽样设计来解决这些差距，从而通过对压力源的空间分布如何影响占用率变化的评估来最好地告知ESA物种状况评估。最后，我们要求通过数据共享参与其中，