Looking Closely: Emirati Women’s Day - The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

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Home > Media > Blog > Looking Closely: Emirati Women’s Day

For Emirati Women’s Day, we meet Maryam AlHaddad, an Emirati researcher and Associate Curator at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, whose work is expanding our understanding of the UAE’s native leafcutter bees from the genus Megachile. They get their name from the way they cut small pieces from leaves with their mandibles and use them to build their nests.

Maryam’s latest research project is trying to answer what sounds like a relatively straightforward question: which Megachile species actually live in the UAE?

The answer is less clear than you might expect.

Records of leafcutter bees exist from across the UAE, but their diversity is still not well documented. Recent research has clarified the identity of some species, while other records still need further study and comparison with museum collections. For conservationists, that matters.

Before we can understand how bee populations are changing, we first need to know exactly which species are present.

Studying the biodiversity of my own country allows me to better understand the wildlife I grew up alongside. Being able to study and document native species today gives me the opportunity to follow my curiosity through a scientific lens and contribute to our understanding of the UAE’s natural heritage. It is both a privilege and a responsibility. I would encourage them not to underestimate the value of their curiosity.

Curiosity is like a thread that can lead you in unexpected directions. Along the way, you may encounter knots that take time to unravel, and there may be moments when the thread feels thin or difficult to follow, but keep going. There is still much to learn about the species around us, and curiosity is often where that journey begins. After all, we cannot conserve what we do not know.

Maryam AlHaddad
Associate Curator
Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi

From a young age, Maryam was fascinated by the wildlife around her, paying close attention to the animals she encountered. Over time, that curiosity became more focused on insects and the questions they raised. Among her earliest memories of observing insects is a scene she still remembers clearly from her school years.

That interest deepened at university, where she carried out insect surveys and examined specimens under the microscope with her mentor, Dr Brigitte Howarth. Seeing bees up close, and learning how much about them is still unknown, drew her towards the Megachilidae family in particular. She became fascinated by the different ways these bees interact with their environment, from collecting pollen beneath their abdomen using a brush of hairs known as a scopa in some species to constructing their nests from leaves, petals, resin, mud, and other materials.

While waiting for the bus during my school years, I had a morning ritual of walking through the garden grass, watching the low-flying dwarf honey bees. At the time I didn’t know the difference between a honey bee and a solitary bee, but I was always fascinated and enjoyed their company.

Maryam AlHaddad
Associate Curator
Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi

Maryam’s project will take her through both museum collections and the field. She plans to examine historic specimens alongside more recent collections from the UAE, including material gathered over several years in Ras Al Khaimah. She will also compare specimens with reference collections and published records from the UAE and neighbouring countries.

Then there is the fieldwork.

Maryam hopes to sample bees in different habitats in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah, particularly areas where native flowering plants provide food and nesting material. Alongside that, she will document which plants the bees use when constructing their nests, helping to build a better understanding of their ecology.

The work can be painstaking. Identifying two apparently similar bees may come down to very small differences that can only be seen under a microscope. If morphology alone does not provide a clear answer, selected specimens may also be sent for DNA barcoding.

One of the interesting things about the project is how much of it is about establishing a baseline.

The conservation status of many of these bees in the UAE is simply not known. Maryam’s research will not resolve every question, but it should provide better information on which species occur here, where they are found, and what habitats they use. That information can then contribute to biodiversity databases, future monitoring, and eventually, conservation decisions.

The project is also about building expertise here in the UAE. With support from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, and through her work at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, she hopes to strengthen local knowledge of insect taxonomy and the biodiversity records that future research and conservation will rely on.

Museums have an important role in that work. Specimens collected years or even decades ago can be revisited with new techniques and new knowledge, allowing researchers to piece together a much fuller picture of how biodiversity changes over time. Sometimes that begins with something small: a bee collected in the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah; a specimen sitting unidentified in a collection; a small piece missing from the edge of a leaf.

For Maryam, each can tell us a little more about the nature of the UAE.

This Emirati Women’s Day, Maryam’s work is a reminder that conservation takes many forms. Some of it happens on a large scale. Some of it begins with a researcher looking closely at a species that few people have ever noticed.

Both matter.

Emirati Women’s Day gives us an opportunity to recognize women whose work is contributing, often very quietly, to the UAE’s future.

Maryam AlHaddad is one of them. Her research focuses on a group of native bees that most of us would probably pass without noticing. Yet understanding these species, where they live and the plants they depend upon is part of understanding the natural heritage of the UAE.

I am particularly pleased that the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund can support research like Maryam’s. Conservation begins with knowledge, and much of that knowledge comes from people who are prepared to spend time in the field, in collections and behind a microscope asking questions that have not yet been answered.

On Emirati Women’s Day, I am very happy to share Maryam’s story and her contribution to conservation in the UAE.

Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak
Managing Director
Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund