Mapping wild bee diversity and flower use for an effective conservation of the Doñana biodiversity hotspot

Abstract Despite encompassing one of the richest bee faunas in Europe, the Iberian Peninsula lacks distributional data that often hampers effective conservation. This gap is particularly critical within protected areas such as the Doñana Natural Area, where biodiversity is expected to be increasingly vulnerable to environmental pressures. Here, we present the first checklist of the wild bees of Doñana. A total of 387 species belonging to 47 genera were recorded, including recently described species and a newly recorded species for continental Europe, Andrena purpurascens . The exceptional diversity of the area's bee fauna accounts for approximately one‐third of the known Iberian apifauna and supports about 15% of the European apifauna, highlighting its conservation importance at a continental scale. We provide information on habitat and floral use, offering key ecological insights for conservation planning. This knowledge is essential to support habitat management decisions, particularly in the face of intensifying climate change and water scarcity across the protected area. In addition, to evaluate long‐term ecological changes, we compared recent field data (2020–2021) with historical surveys conducted at the same site between 1984 and 1985. While a similar number of species were recorded in both periods (49 vs. 43 species), only 15 species were shared between the two. This large‐scale species observed turnover indicates the dynamic nature of a region undergoing significant environmental shifts. These findings underscore the importance of baseline biodiversity assessments and long‐term monitoring for understanding and mitigating pollinator dynamics in protected ecosystems, which are increasingly shaped by climate instability and anthropogenic pressures.