Data for submitted manuscript "Bee (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila) roadkill across Texas, United States of America, in comparison with other studies" by James L. Tracy, Shelby K. Kilpatrick, Karen Wright, Elise V. Voltura, Anna-Capri Perez, Jasper Klein, Adrienne Brundage, and Robert Coulson

ABSTRACT: Roadkill is an often unrecognized significant contributor to bee pollinator decline. Additional surveys can further reveal how roadkill impacts bee populations, especially for declining species. We conducted 100 m roadside transect surveys across Texas, USA during spring and autumn 2020 and spring 2021, identifying roadkill bees to the lowest feasible taxon to map roadkill distribution and hotspots and estimate regional roadkill and community metrics. We also compared our results with data newly extracted from other bee roadkill studies, including a Utah vehicle-mounted sticky trap survey and a Tennessee year-round roadside transect study. We correlated and compared bee genera median body lengths and their relative abundance among Texas and Utah bee roadkill surveys and iNaturalist occurrence data. Roadkill was highly to moderately skewed towards hotspots/hot-moments. Approximately 4.6–11.6 million bees were killed on Texas roads in 2020, based on boot strapped accelerated bias-corrected 95% CI. These included mean estimates of 336,213 Bombus pensylvanicus and 45,847 B. sonorus, both species of conservation concern. Non-lethal roadside transect methods commonly detected larger-bodied Bombus and Xylocopa bees absent in lethal Utah vehicle-mounted sticky trap surveys. Conversely, Utah sticky trap surveys detected abundant smaller-sized Perdita and Lasioglossum bees rare or absent from roadside transect studies. Roadkill hotspots/hot-moments for bees of conservation concern can be better identified through combining multi-seasonal roadside transect replicates with data from vehicle-mounted foam-backed sticky traps or quasi-lethal vehicular bee sweepers. Accounting for the adjacent habitat and bee community can facilitate identifying and mitigating bee roadkill susceptibility.