Tormentil Mining Bee (Andrena tarsata)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - hymenopteran > Bee |
| Red List Status: | (Not Relevant) [(not listed)(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Andrena tarsata |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Nylander, 1848 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | (not listed) |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | No previous listing or status |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Still widely scattered across western and northern Britain, but declining. BWARS does not consider it to be scarce or threatened. Historical records suggest it is being lost from eastern England and East Anglia, possibly as a result of climate change and/or intensive management of heathland/acid grassland sites, resulting in a loss of its forage plant. It has been described as a boreal-alpine species, so would favour cooler climate conditions. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The species that needs specific management is its forage plant, Tormentil Potentilla erecta. Detailed actions were identified in the Buglife South West Bees Project report, Nov 2013, https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2019/07/South-west-bees-project-final_1.pdf, which has general applicability throughout GB. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Heathland and acid grasslands need a mosaic of successional stages to create bare areas for nesting and open, short sward areas to promote growth of Tormentil. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 6. Recovery solutions trialled |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Combination or other (detail in comments) |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | If global warming is pushing the bee further north and west, there may be little that can be done to bring it back to East Anglia and south-east England. Creation of better conditions elsewhere depends on achieving sustainable grazing stock levels and scrub control. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Set up monitoring surveys within at least 15 sites across its geographical range.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites: Selected populations covering its whole geographical extent.
Comments: Monitoring across England may help identify localised population declines and the reasons behind them.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Promote sustainable grazing levels to ensure significant persistence and expansion of Tormentil.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites: The same sites identified for monitoring in Action 1.
Comments: Interventions could include fencing parts of a site to limit/prevent grazing by livestock, reducing stocking density or altering the time of year when grazing is permitted.
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Active habitat manipulation (see Action Comments A3 for details).
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites: The same monitoring sites as previous.
Comments: Interventions to include cutting firebreaks in heather heathland and acid grasslands (to reduce fire risk and also to create short-sward conditions), creating "bee bank" nesting sites and planting Potentilla shrubs in urban/suburban environments where the bee occurs there.
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.