The orchid-bee fauna (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of ‘Reserva Biológica de Una’, a hotspot in the Atlantic Forest of southern Bahia, eastern Brazil

Abstract

The orchid-bee fauna of 'Reserva Biológica de Una' (REBIO Una), one of the largest Atlantic Forest remnants in southern Bahia, eastern Brazil, was surveyed for the first time. Baits with sixteen different scents were used to attract males of orchid bees. Eight hundred and fifty-nine males belonging to 26 species were actively collected with insect nets during 60 hours in January and February, 2009, and January, 2010. Euglossa avicula Dressler, 1982 and Euglossa milenae Bembé, 2007 have been recorded for the first time in the state of Bahia. It was found that REBIO Una has one of the most diverse and rich orchid-bee faunas of the entire Atlantic Forest domain and holds some rare species, such as Euglossa cyanochlora Moure, 1996.Keywords: Atlantic Forest, conservation, Euglossina, euglossine bees, Hexapoda. Palavras-chave: Mata Atlântica, conservação, Euglossina, abelhas euglossinas, Hexapoda. A fauna de abelhas-das-orquídeas (

The Orchid Bee Communities in different phytophysiognomies in the Atlantic Forest: from lowland to montane rainforests

“…Euglossa amazonica, E. clausi, and E. imperialis were not recorded in the DLOF. In spite of being recorded in the other three areas, E. amazonica was not an abundant species, as other authors have already pointed out (Nemésio, 2011b(Nemésio, , 2013aPires et al, 2013, mentioned as Euglossa aratingae Nemésio). According to Nemésio (2009), this species has a broad distribution, but it is rarely sampled.…”

“…Studies carried out in other Atlantic forest areas also pointed out to the dominance of this species (Aguiar & Gaglianone, 2008Ramalho et al, 2009;Ramalho et al, 2013;Nemésio, 2013aNemésio, , 2013b. Euglossa cordata has been frequently considered a bioindicator of environmental disturbances, as this species if favored by dry and/or perturbed environments (Peruquetti et al, 1999;Silva & Rebelo, 2002;Aguiar & Gaglianone, 2008;Rocha-Filho & Garófalo, 2013).…”

“…One of the last remnants of Atlantic Forest in the Central Corridor lies in southern Bahia (Franke et al, 2005;Saatchi et al, 2001). The region is known as an important endemism area for several taxonomic groups, and has been considered one of the most important in the Atlantic Forest (Franke et al, 2005;Nemésio, 2013a). The orchid bee fauna of the Central Atlantic Forest Corridor was studied in the southern portion of Bahia (Nemésio, 2013a;Nemésio, 2013b;Nemésio, 2013c;Nemésio, 2014) and in a region near to our study area (Rosa et al, 2015).…”

“…The region is known as an important endemism area for several taxonomic groups, and has been considered one of the most important in the Atlantic Forest (Franke et al, 2005;Nemésio, 2013a). The orchid bee fauna of the Central Atlantic Forest Corridor was studied in the southern portion of Bahia (Nemésio, 2013a;Nemésio, 2013b;Nemésio, 2013c;Nemésio, 2014) and in a region near to our study area (Rosa et al, 2015). However, large variations have been observed in orchid bee communities, even in neighboring regions, which could be related to habitat heterogeneity (Tonhasca et al, 2002b).…”

Is the “Centro de Endemismo Pernambuco” a biodiversity hotspot for orchid bees?

“…Roubik (2004a) had already suggested that surveys of orchid-bee males with scent baits during a single day have great utility, and may reveal almost as much about local community structure as studies lasting a full year. The protocol proposed by Nemésio (2010b) has already been used in more than twenty areas in northeastern Brazil (Nemésio, 2010b; this study), southern Bahia (Nemésio, 2011a(Nemésio, , 2013a, northern Espírito Santo (Nemésio, 2011b(Nemésio, , 2013b, Minas Gerais (Nemésio, 2012c;Nemésio and Paula, 2013), and the Peruvian Amazon (Nemésio et al, 2014), always with a high number of collected specimens during a relatively short period of time. With more than 3,000 bees collected in only ten days, the present study revealed one of the highest abundances ever recorded with this 20-hour sampling strategy, only rivalled by the regions of Monte Pascoal, in southern Bahia (Nemésio, 2013d), and Linhares, in northern Espírito Santo (Nemésio, 2013b).…”