Orchid bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) community from a gallery forest in the Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract

The orchid bees are a very important group of pollinators distributed in the Neotropics. Although a lot of studies concerning male euglossine bees have been done in this region, few works have so far been carried out in the Cerrado biome. This manuscript has the main objective to present the orchid bee community from a Gallery Forest in the Northeastern Brazilian Cerrado landscape, taking account the species composition, abundance, seasonality and hourly distribution. Male euglossine bees were collected monthly from October 2007 to May 2009, in the Reserva Florestal da Itamacaoca belonging to the Companhia de Água e Esgoto do Maranhão, in Chapadinha municipality, Maranhão State. The scents eucalyptol, eugenol and vanillin were utilized, between 07:00 and 17:00hr, to attract the euglossine males. Cotton balls were dampened with the scents and suspended by a string on tree branches 1.5m above soil level, set 8m from one another. The specimens were captured with entomological nets, killed with ethyl acetate and transported to the laboratory to be identified. A total of 158 individuals and 14 species of bees were recorded. The genus Eulaema was the most representative group of euglossine bees in relation to the total number of the sampled individuals, accounting for 50.6% of bees followed by Euglossa (26.6%), Eufriesea (15.2%) and Exaerete (7.6%). The most frequent species were Eulaema nigrita (27.8%), Eulaema cingulata (19%) and Euglossa cordata (18.3%). Many species typical of forested environments were found in samples, like Euglossa avicula, Euglossa violaceifrons and Eulaema meriana, emphasizing the role played by the Gallery Forests as bridge sites to connect the two great biomes of Amazonia and Atlantic Forest. The occurrence of Exaerete guaykuru represents the second record of this species for the Neotropical region, and both records coming from the Gallery Forest zones. The male euglossine bees were sampled mainly in the dry season, where 62.5% of the individuals were collected in that period. Eufriesea species appeared at the baits only in the wet season. The hourly frequency of bees at scent baits showed a clear preference for the morning period, where 87.9% visited the baits from 07:00 to 12:00hr. The euglossine bee fauna found in the Northeastern Maranhão Cerrado is represented chiefly by species of large geographic distribution and by some forest bee species, where their occurrence is maybe related to to the environmental conditions supported by the

Temporal variation in the abundance of Orchid Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in a Neotropical Hygrophilous Forest

“…and rainy months with activity peaks varying among species. These results are consistent with other studies carried out in different ecosystems (e.g., Rebêlo & Garófalo, 1991Rebêlo & Cabral, 1997;Ramalho et al, 2009;Cordeiro et al, 2013;Silva, 2012) suggesting that the peaks in number of individuals and species are probably related to a higher availability of floral resources (Rebêlo & Garófalo, 1997), since the flowering in tropical environments is cued by the rains and many of the orchid bees may also use these rains as a cue larity in species composition with other regional vegetation types contrasts with the very low number of individuals sampled and suggests a strong effect of area and spatial isolation by sugarcane culture and deforestation. Other studies should be carried out in other hygrophilous forests areas in order to increase the species list and also to advance the knowledge about community composition of these bees in this kind of vegetation, which is still poorly known.…”

“…These observations reveal a lack of attraction of males of those species by the baits used in those studies or, in the case of Eg. townsendi, a weak association, because even when they were attracted by the baits they were always in small numbers (Janzen et al, 1982;Ackerman, 1989;Rebêlo & Garófalo, 1997;Nemésio & Silveira, 2007;Abrahamczyk et al, 2011;Silva, 2012). Such occurrences show the importance of using alternative methods to sample euglossine bees, such as trap nests (Garófalo et al, 1993) and direct collection on flowers (Hirotsu et al 2010), C-Sertãozinho (Rebêlo & Garófalo, 1997), D-Matão (Jesus & Garófalo 2000), E-Patrocínio Paulista (Silveira et al 2011), F-Cajuru (Rebêlo & Garófalo, 1991.…”

Historical records of orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) in Belém Endemism Center: species list of 92 years sampling

“…Number Maués et al, 2008;Rebêlo and Cabral, 1997;Silva andRebêlo, 1999, 2002;Solar et al, 2016). We found one species with new record for BEC.…”

“…We checked the species distribution recorded in our research with information available on the literature for Neotropical region (Dressler, 1982a, b, c;Hinojosa-Díaz and Engel, 2014;Oliveira, 2006Oliveira, , 2007Ramírez et al, 2002Ramírez et al, , 2015, Brazilian Amazon Morato, 2004, 2006;Nemésio, 2005;Oliveira and Campos, 1995;Oliveira and Nemésio, 2003;Santos-Júnior et al, 2014;Storck-Tonon et al, 2009; Atlantic Forest and Cerrado (Nemésio, 2009(Nemésio, , 2010(Nemésio, , 2012bSilveira, 2007, 2010;Nemésio and Faria-Junior, 2004;Oliveira-Junior et al, 2015;Silva, 2012); and current studies carried out on the states of Pará and Maranhão (Antonini et al, 2017;Brito et al, 2017; Brito and Rêgo, Table 1. Composition, number of specimens recorded, frequency of occurrence (FO), dominance (D) and category (CAT) of orchid bees from entomological collections, with occurrence in the municipalities of Belém Endemism Center, eastern Amazon, Brazil.…”

First record of Aglae caerulea (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Euglossini) in Brazilian Cerrado east of the Amazon Region, Maranhão State, Brazil

“…Recently, its presence was recorded in phytophysiognomic studies of gallery forests within areas of Cerrado in Mato Grosso State, Brazil, where males were attracted and captured in methyl cinnamate baited traps (Anjos- Silva et al, 2006;Silva et al, 2013). Although several entomological surveys have used a variety of chemical baits (Rebêlo and Silva, 1999;Albuquerque et al, 2001;Brito and Rêgo, 2001;Silva andRêbelo, 2002, Carvalho et al, 2006;Mendes et al, 2008;Silva et al, 2009;Silva, 2012), A. caerulea was not previously found in any of the areas studied in Maranhão State. The absence of this species, especially in rainforests, is most likely because methyl cinnamate baits, for which A. caerulea has an affinity, were not used.…”