Abstract
The composition of the fauna of social wasps in two areas of Semideciduous Seasonal Montane Forest in Southeastern Brazil was investigated. The collections were conducted between January 2011 and February 2013 with the use of two methodologies: bait traps and active collecting. Thirty-four species were recorded, distributed in 11 genera, namely, Polybia Lepeletier represented by 11 species (31%), followed by Polistes Latreille and Mischocyttarus de Saussure, both with seven species (20%); the other genera were represented only by one or two species. Three new records were done for Minas Gerais: Mischocyttarus consimilis Zikan, Mischocyttarus ignotus Zikan and Mischocyttarus paraguayensis Zikan. The similarity of the fauna of social wasps of the different studies conducted in Minas Gerais presented negative and significant correlation with the distance among the areas (r2=0.1488, p= 0.02).
Highlights
Social wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), known as marimbondos and/or cabas (Souza & Zanuncio, 2012), possesses cosmopolitan distribution, with the greatest diversity of species in the Neotropical region (Carpenter, 1981; Carpenter & Marques, 2001)
In spite of the ecological importance of social wasps, a few species are potentially endangered of extinction, in consequence of the human action by the destruction of the colonies, indiscriminate use of insecticides (Prezoto, 1999; Souza et al, 2012), in addition to the fragmentation and replacement of continuous forest areas, which has brought about the decrease of the nesting sites and food sources (Souza et al, 2010; Souza et al, 2014)
The vegetation of SGS is of the type Semideciduous Seasonal Montane Forest, Riparian Forest and Campo Cerrado
Summary
Social wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), known as marimbondos and/or cabas (Souza & Zanuncio, 2012), possesses cosmopolitan distribution, with the greatest diversity of species in the Neotropical region (Carpenter, 1981; Carpenter & Marques, 2001). In Brazil, the representatives of that group belong to the subfamily Polistinae, with around 319 species reported in 26 genera (Prezoto et al, 2007) They are found in natural environments (Elpino-Campos et al, 2007; Souza et al, 2012), both cultivated (Auad et al, 2010; De Souza et al, 2012) and man-modified areas (Jacques et al, 2012; Souza et al, 2013). In spite of several works of diversity of social wasps having been carried out in Minas Gerais in the latest years, are few the sampled areas of natural vegetation (Souza & Zanuncio, 2012) In this context, the achievement of that study proposes to obtain information of the fauna of social wasps in two areas of Semideciduous Seasonal Montane Forest in Southeastern Brazil.
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