-In Brazil, where the use of neonicotinoids is allowed in bee-attracting flowering crops, we investigated whether thiamethoxam intake during the larval stage of the native bee species Scaptotrigona aff. depilis affects the survival and development by exposing larvae to contaminated food. Our results indicated that the larvae exposed to the dose at a field-realistic level and to the doses ranging around it had their survival rates significantly impaired. At the highest doses, we observed larvae and pupae with shorter and longer development times, respectively, and the formation of smaller and asymmetric specimens. Evidently, we need to consider that thiamethoxam reaches the pollen and nectar at residual levels, and that they are processed by nurse bees before destined for offspring. Nevertheless, our findings suggest a warning, since the individuals had their biological parameters affected by thiamethoxam, when exposed to doses at field-realistic levels.larval food / in vitro rearing / adverse effects / developmental stage / insecticides
Background
Animal pollination is an important ecosystem function and service, ensuring both the integrity of natural systems and human well-being. Although many knowledge shortfalls remain, some high-quality data sets on biological interactions are now available. The development and adoption of standards for biodiversity data and metadata has promoted great advances in biological data sharing and aggregation, supporting large-scale studies and science-based public policies. However, these standards are currently not suitable to fully support interaction data sharing.
Results
Here we present a vocabulary of terms and a data model for sharing plant–pollinator interactions data based on the Darwin Core standard. The vocabulary introduces 48 new terms targeting several aspects of plant–pollinator interactions and can be used to capture information from different approaches and scales. Additionally, we provide solutions for data serialization using RDF, XML, and DwC-Archives and recommendations of existing controlled vocabularies for some of the terms. Our contribution supports open access to standardized data on plant–pollinator interactions.
Conclusions
The adoption of the vocabulary would facilitate data sharing to support studies ranging from the spatial and temporal distribution of interactions to the taxonomic, phenological, functional, and phylogenetic aspects of plant–pollinator interactions. We expect to fill data and knowledge gaps, thus further enabling scientific research on the ecology and evolution of plant–pollinator communities, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and the development of public policies. The proposed data model is flexible and can be adapted for sharing other types of interactions data by developing discipline-specific vocabularies of terms.
Male flowers of the wind-pollinated, dioecious shrub Boehmeria caudata Sw. release pollen explosively, possibly stimulated by anther dehydration in response to temporarily dry conditions coupled with hydrostatic pressure in the filament. In the Brazilian Atlantic rain forest, the daily frequency of male flower anthesis peaked between 1000–1200 h (GMT −3) and was positively correlated with rising temperature, wind currents, and direct insolation, but negatively correlated with relative humidity. A generalized linear mixed model predicts the probability of pollen release under different conditions of relative humidity and wind. Receptive stigmas on female flowers were found at any time of day: individual stigmas were receptive (H2O2 test) for at least two days. Beetles and halictid bees were observed feeding on pollen from staminate flowers, but probably did not affect pollination because they did not seem to visit pistillate flowers. Individual plants of this apparently ruderal species grow along road edges and show aggregated (clumped) spatial dispersion. The overall sex ratio we found was 29 females to 43 males, with one monoecious plant in a total transect distance of 6319 m. Pollen traps were placed on the female plants to measure pollen arrival. Pollen capture was higher on the more exposed road-facing side and positively related to male plant density.
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