Abstract
ABSTRACT Riparian forests are important ecosystems that support an enormous biodiversity in Brazil. Despite being protected under Brazilian legislation, these forests suffer great impact from the fragmentation of habitats. Orchid bees are a key group of pollinators in the Neotropical region, yet few data are available on the assamblage structure of these bees in riparian forests. We evaluated the role of fragments of riparian and terra-firme forest on the conservation and maintenance of orchid bees in an urban landscape in the southwestern Amazon basin. Specifically, we evaluated whether bee assemblages in riparian and terra-firme forests differed significantly in abundance, species richness and composition. We also evaluated whether species richness and abundance of bees vary with the size of the forest fragment. Male bees were attracted using odoriferous baits and collected with entomological nets in 10 forest fragments. There was no significant difference between riparian and terra-firme fragments in species abundance, richness and composition, but there was a positive correlation between fragment size and species richness and abundance. Our results suggest that, in an urban landscape, the remaining riparian and terra-firme forest fragments still could maintain 62.7% of the orchid bee species known to occur in the region, reinforcing the conservation value of these forest remnants. Our findings indicate that these fragments provide a potentially important habitat for the maintenance of local bee populations in the landscape.
Highlights
Riparian forests provide important ecosystem services, such as the maintenance and protection of water resources, geological stability and biodiversity, the facilitation of gene flow of both fauna and flora, and the protection of soils, while supporting the wellbeing of human populations (Borges et al 2011; Monteiro et al 2013; Martins 2014)
In Brazil, despite being protected under forestry legislation, which requires the maintenance of riparian zones on private properties as permanent reserves (BRASIL 2012), riparian forests have been widely impacted by deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and urbanization (Martins 2014; Ferreira et al 2015)
In the Neotropical region, the orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) are a key group of insect pollinators (Roubik and Hanson 2004), more abundant and diverse in wellpreserved environments (Antonini et al 2016; Allen et al 2019), some, more generalist species are found in degraded areas (Silva and De Marco-Júnior 2014; Aguiar et al 2015)
Summary
Riparian forests provide important ecosystem services, such as the maintenance and protection of water resources, geological stability and biodiversity, the facilitation of gene flow of both fauna and flora, and the protection of soils, while supporting the wellbeing of human populations (Borges et al 2011; Monteiro et al 2013; Martins 2014). In the Neotropical region, the orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) are a key group of insect pollinators (Roubik and Hanson 2004), more abundant and diverse in wellpreserved environments (Antonini et al 2016; Allen et al 2019), some, more generalist species are found in degraded areas (Silva and De Marco-Júnior 2014; Aguiar et al 2015) They are pollinators of native and cultivated plants and the conservation of this group of bees is a fundamental prerequisite for the conservation of many orchids and a wide variety of other plants found in tropical forests (Cavalcante et al 2012). Higher visitation rates to odoriferous baits and greater species richness of orchid bees have been reported in larger forest fragments (Powell and Powell 1987), but data on this subject are generally scarce for orchid bees (Powell and Powell 1987; Ramalho et al 2009; Brosi 2009)
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