Effects of fragments and landscape characteristics on the orchid bee richness (Apidae: Euglossini) in an urban matrix, southwestern Amazonia

Abstract

Orchid bees are important pollinators in tropical forests. Although studies have already detected effects of habitat loss and forest fragmentation on bee assemblages, little is known about orchid bees in urban forest fragments. The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of forest fragments (size and edge index) and landscape features (forest cover area and built-up area around the forest fragments, connectivity and spatial distance from the urban center) on the abundance, richness and composition of orchid bees. Male bees were attracted by odoriferous baits and collected in ten forest fragments of different sizes. In total, we collected 3166 male bees belonging to 4 genera and 38 species. The increase of the built-up area and the reduction of the forest cover area around the forest fragments decreased the abundance and richness of bees. We recorded a smaller number of bees in areas closer to the urban center. We failed to find a significant relationship between abundance/richness of bees and forest fragment area, edge index, and connectivity. We observed that the faunistic dissimilarity was positively correlated with the geographic distance between forest fragments. The forest fragments that presented greater landscape dissimilarity also presented greater faunistic dissimilarity. Our results suggest that the matrix structure around the forest fragments is an important factor that influences the Euglossini bee assemblages inside these forest fragments. Based on our results, we believed that the conservation of fragments with a larger forest cover area and smaller built-up areas around them contribute to the maintenance of the diversity of orchid bees and their pollination services.