Taxonomic Diversity and Ecomorphological Traits of Wild Bees in Mexico and Mesoamerica

This dataset includes 2,757 bee taxa from Mexico and Mesoamerica from the database of the Bee Collection of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico (ECOAB). The bees were determined at the species, genus, or morphospecies level designated by ECOAB. Each taxon was assigned ecomorphological traits: body size, nesting site, sociality, and body structure for pollen transport. For size, smaller, same size, and larger categories were assigned with respect size of Apis mellifera (approx. 10 mm) as a model. To describe nesting habits, the categories underground and aboveground were used for taxa nesting below ground and above ground respectively (regardless of substrate or nesting form). Social, solitary, and parasitic categories were used to describe sociality based on Danforth et al. 2019. Pollen transport structure categories were Scopa, Corbicula, and No pollen collector. In the case of the scopa, its location was specified: leg, referring to the hind leg; ventral, referring to the metasomal sternites, and propodeal. The information assigned to the taxa came from bibliographic searches, observations of specimens, and previous field observations.