Due to deforestation and fragmentation of ecosystems, the management of bee populations targeting pollination services is increasingly urgent. Because urban environments are stressful, the dietary knowledge in such areas can help to cope with this issue in the near future. Using palynological analysis the floral resources used by Centris flavifrons, an important pollinator of crops and native plants was studied in an urban area. Byrsonima sericea type, Solanum paniculatum type, Cestrum type, and Myrcia type 1 together accounted for more than 93% of pollen grains foraged by females. It is noteworthy that this bee population depends on few plant species both for pollen and for oil. Furthermore, females showed flexibility to replace the primary pollen source in different breeding seasons, as well as one female could provision different cells in the same nest with different predominant pollen types. The importance of wastelands and natural areasis highlighted for keeping bee populations in urban areas. Amid discussions about loss of biodiversity, urban areas are seen with a potential to promote diversity as a result of designing and planning the cities to foster interaction between people and nature (Miller, 2005). Centris (Centris) flavifrons (Fabricius) has mainly a Neotropical distribution, occurring also in the Nearctic region in Sinaloa, Mexico (Moure et al., 2012) and is an important pollinator of Malpighia emarginata L., called West Indian cherry, and others agricultural crops, for example Passiflora alata Curtis (Gaglianone et al., 2010;Vilhena et al., 2012). It has also an important role in native plant species pollination in the Neotropical region, especially of Malpighiaceae, e.g.
Sociobiology