Antecedentes y Objetivos: Según su arquitectura floral, Salvia assurgens (salvia con flores blancas) ha sido considerada como especie melitófila. Sin embargo, no existen datos empíricos que apoyen la asignación a dicho síndrome de polinización. Este trabajo tuvo como objetivo registrar los visitantes florales diurnos de S. assurgens para confirmar su condición melitófila y evaluar qué especies de abejas podrían ser potenciales polinizadores. Métodos: Durante el verano de 2018 y 2019 se colectaron los visitantes florales diurnos en una población de S. assurgens ubicada al noreste de Michoacán, México. Se realizó un análisis descriptivo de las cargas polínicas por especie y áreas corporales de cada visitante floral. Además, se registró el comportamiento de algunos de los visitantes florales sobre las flores. Resultados clave: Se registraron 17 especies de abejas de tres familias (Apidae, Halictidae y Megachilidae) como visitantes florales de S. assurgens. Noventa por ciento de los granos de polen en las cargas polínicas pertenecieron a S. assurgens. Cuatro especies de abejas nativas fueron los visitantes más frecuentes; estas concentraron 94.2% del polen de S. assurgens y presentaron diferencias en la distribución del polen según el área corporal. Dos de estas especies, Bombus pennsylvanicus sonorus y Megachile sp. 1, concentraron hasta 90% del polen de S. assurgens en su frente y dorso, lugares que hacen más probable la transferencia de polen al estigma de S. assurgens. Conclusiones: Este estudio proporciona una evidencia de la condición melitófila de S. assurgens. De hecho, la riqueza de abejas silvestres registrada en este trabajo fue similar o mayor a la reportada en estudios anteriores sobre visitantes florales de salvias neotropicales. Además, nuestros resultados destacan la utilidad de las cargas de polen para aumentar nuestro conocimiento sobre la ecología de la polinización en Salvia.

DNA barcode sequences remain unavailable for many species of Mexican Coleoptera. This study presents the first COI barcode records for four saproxylophagous beetle species (Coleoptera: Buprestidae, Cerambycidae) from the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico: Acmaeodera scalaris, Placosternus erythropus, Parevander xanthomelas, and Stenaspis castaneipennis. The sequences, together with their associated metadata, were deposited in the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD) under the project Oaxaca Central Valley Insect Diversity (OCVID). A. scalaris is newly barcoded for Mexico, while the other three species are newly represented in global barcode databases. The P. xanthomelas barcode differs by approximately 8% from a GenBank sequence labeled with the same name, suggesting either a misidentified reference or a cryptic mitochondrial lineage. These data expand the molecular reference coverage for Neotropical Buprestidae and Cerambycidae and highlight the need for additional taxonomic work to refine species boundaries within Cerambycidae.

Milkweeds, despite their toxicity, support a complex and diverse community of specialised herbivore insects, from sap-sucking aphids to leaf-chewing caterpillars and beetles. In the case of butterflies, milkweeds are the feeding plants of the iconic Monarch butterfly and the rest of the milkweed butterflies (Nymphalidae: Danainae). This plant–insect relationship represents one of the most remarkable examples of herbivorous exploitation and plant defence evolution. For the neotropical milkweed butterflies, numerous host plants have been reported inside several genera and species of Apocynaceae. However, new observations still appear. In this work, we report for the first time Telminostelma foetidum as a host plant for two Danaus species and for the Erebidae Euchaetes mitis in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. We also report novel observations of an adult of D. eresimus as a flower visitor of T. foetidum besides the already known honey bee. We discuss the importance of native milkweeds in the maintenance of the urban population of milkweed butterflies and moths.

Xicotli data is the short name given to the dataset generated within the project framework "Integration of Biodiversity Data for the Management and Conservation of Wild Bee-Plant Interactions in Mexico (2021-2023)", as xicotli is the generic word for a bee in Nahuatl. The team comprised eco-informaticians, ecologists and taxonomists of both native bees and flora. The generated dataset contains so far 4,532 curated records of the plants, which are potential hosts of species of three focal families of bees native to Mexico: Apidae, Halictidae and Megachilidae and morphological and ecological data of the plant-bee interactions. This dataset was integrated and mobilised from citizen observations available at naturalista.mx (iNat), which were compiled through the iNaturalist project. The new information obtained with the Xicotli data project was: Taxonomic information about bee species curated by taxonomists based on the information contained in iNaturalist; Taxonomic identification of the host plants by a botanist from the photos compiled by the Xicotli Data project; Data on the ecomorphological traits of bees and plants based on expert knowledge and literature. Taxonomic information about bee species curated by taxonomists based on the information contained in iNaturalist; Taxonomic identification of the host plants by a botanist from the photos compiled by the Xicotli Data project; Data on the ecomorphological traits of bees and plants based on expert knowledge and literature. All the data were integrated into the Xicotli Data Project via the creation of new “observation fields". The visibility of the information originally contained in iNaturalist was maximized and can be consulted directly on the iNaturalist platform.