The Wild Bee Data Standard is a standardized means of recording and reporting data associated with wild bee occurrences, including physical specimens and photo observations. It is an adaptation of the Darwin Core (DwC) standard specific to wild bee occurrence information. When working with DwC terms, whether by creating new datasets or translating existing data, not all terms need to be used; therefore, The Wild Bee Data Standard only includes DwC terms that are most relevant to wild bee occurrence-based analyses. Many of these terms describe information that is familiar to those working with wild bee occurrence data, including date, time, location, and species collected, but we also emphasize reporting information on sampling methods and study design. Some DwC terms recommend using controlled vocabularies, which are lists of allowable entries, to provide particular information. Controlled vocabulary lists for DwC terms are provided as needed in The Wild Bee Data Standard. A full term list is available within this repository.
To aid in the adoption and publication of data following The Wild Bee Data Standard, we provide two templates for entering compliant data into a computer (Du Clos et al., 2025). Both templates contain descriptive information and instructions for use in a README tab, a metadata tab that can be used to populate metadata when publishing online, and a full term list with definitions and links to their Darwin Core (DwC) webpages.
The Wild Bee Data Standard is currently under review for publication (a preprint is available), as are several standardized protocols to collect wild bee occurrence information. These protocols and The Wild Bee Data Standard were developed as part of the US National Native Bee Monitoring Research Coordination Network and will be published together in a special issue of the Journal of Mellitology.