Due to its abundance in most terrestrial ecosystems ants are considered ecologically dominant and play complex ecological roles such as ecosystem engineers, predators, herbivores and seed dispersal agents (Hölldobler & Wilson,
Pollen analysis in honey can be used as an alternative method to researchinto flowers visited by bees in an area. This study aimed to indentify the mainfloral families in honey from apiaries in the Atlantic Forest and Sergipe statecoast. Honey samples from these apiaries were studied, as well as plants thatgrow around them, which can be used as a source of foraging for bees. Thepalynological technique was used to compare the pollen content of honeysamples with the pollen grains from leaves of plants found in the vicinityof the apiaries to assess whether they had been visited by bees. The resultsof studies in both sites were similar in terms of incompatibility of familiesfound in the apiary vicinity and honey. Thus, it was possible to observe thatin honey samples from the coast and in the remaining Atlantic forest, thenumber of families was greater than the number of families found in theapiary vicinity, which highlights the diversity of plants visited by bees and apossible expansion of the visited area for food search. This diversity suggestsan adaptive foraging behavior to plant resources available in the environment,which may facilitate the pollination of these botanical families andconsequently improve their genetic quality.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.