# A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a large dataset of bee-plant interactions, highlighting gaps in global knowledge and offering a resource for biodiversity and conservation research.

## Contribution

The paper provides a curated and expanded dataset of bee-plant interactions with enhanced metadata and taxonomy.

## Key findings

- The dataset includes 981,982 unique interactions between 5,537 bee species and 12,699 plant taxa.
- The dataset is biased toward North America and Western Europe and includes mostly human-used plants.

## Abstract

Bees are one of the most important pollinators in terrestrial ecosystems, supporting biodiversity and food production. However, global knowledge of their interactions with host plants remains limited. To address this, we describe and refine a subset of the Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI) database focused on bee-plant interactions. We updated taxonomy using current checklists and enhanced the dataset with metadata on geography, endemism, and human uses of plants. The resulting dataset includes 981,982 unique interaction records between 5,537 bee species and 12,699 plant taxa. Despite its scale, the dataset is affected by strong taxonomic and geographic biases. It covers only 26% of described bee species and 4% of flowering plant taxa—primarily those used by humans—and is heavily skewed toward North America and Western Europe. Nevertheless, GloBI represents a valuable resource for incorporating bee-plant interactions into biodiversity and conservation-oriented research and represents a considerable advance in our current knowledge.