Social Wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Polistinae) from Northeastern Brazil: State of the Art

Luan Victor Brandão Dos Santos,Paulo Roberto Ramalho Silva,Daniel Pereira Monteiro,Alexandre Somavilla,José Rodrigues Almeida Neto

doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v67i4.5466

Luan Victor Brandão Dos Santos, Paulo Roberto Ramalho Silva + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v67i4.5466

Copy DOI

Abstract

For many years, research about social wasps in the Northeast was neglected due to its climatic and vegetative characteristics, insufficient incentive for training researchers to study these animals and perpetuation of low diversity of these groups in arid environments proposed by Ducke. This study carried out a bibliographic survey of research about social wasps in a 40 years period from January/1979 to December/2019, to determine the overall reality of biodiversity and richness knowledge for social wasps species. One hundred and twenty-four (124) social wasp species have been registered in the Northeast Region, distributed among 20 genera. Epiponini stands out with 84 species, followed by Mischocyttarini (24) and Polistini (16). Sergipe is the only state with no studies and records of species thus far. Such results show the importance of continuing taxonomic studies of these insects to expand their geographic distribution and to determine areas for environmental preservation in the Northeastern biomes, i.e., the Caatinga sensu lato, Cerrado and Amazon rainforest and their transition zones, as they have been insufficiently studied and present high potential for new discoveries. We suggest Alagoas, Ceará, Pernambuco and, especially Sergipe as priority areas since there is a lacking data in these states. Finally, we recommend continuing research on species reports in states like Bahia, using the map created herein to choose future study areas.

Highlights

The Northeast region of Brazil occupies 18.27% of the country’s territory, covering 1,558,000 km2, and is divided into nine states: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe
The region presents phytophysiognomies from the Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Amazon Forest and Caatinga biomes, with the latter almost exclusively found in the Northeast region where it covers more than half of its territory and mostly coincides with the Semi-Arid region
The Semi-Arid region is made up of Caatinga, characterized by high temperatures, low rainfall and water deficit, which is why this region was thought to be the result of anthropic degradation of forest regions such as the Atlantic

Summary

Introduction

The Northeast region of Brazil occupies 18.27% of the country’s territory, covering 1,558,000 km, and is divided into nine states: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe. The region presents phytophysiognomies from the Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Amazon Forest and Caatinga biomes, with the latter almost exclusively found in the Northeast region where it covers more than half of its territory and mostly coincides with the Semi-Arid region. It holds several transition zones between biomes, which are considered potential places of endemism (Vieira et al, 2017). Forest and the Amazon Rainforest (Alves et al, 2009) Such perception has recently changed with the recognition of this region’s high biodiversity and endemism of species, including social wasps (Oliveira et al, 2012; Andena & Carpenter, 2014). These wasps prey on immature and adult forms of other insects, helping to naturally control agricultural pests (Prezoto & Giannotti, 1994; Moretti et al, 2011)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion