Invasive Africanized honey bee impact on native solitary bees: a pollen resource and trap nest analysis

Abstract

Little is known of the potential coevolution of flowers and bees in changing, biodiverse environments. Female solitary bees, megachilids and Centris, and their nest pollen provisions were monitored with trap nests over a 17-year period in a tropical Mexican biosphere reserve. Invasion by feral Apis (i.e. Africanized honey bees) occurred after the study began, and major droughts and hurricanes occurred throughout. Honey bee competition, and ostensibly pollination of native plants, caused changes in local pollination ecology. Shifts in floral hosts by native bees were common and driven by plant phylogenetics, whereby plants of the same families or higher taxa were substituted for those dominated by honey bees or lost as a result of natural processes.

Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) and flowers in natural forest patches of southern Pantanal

“…This overlap in flower visitation has been reported in areas of Cerrado in the State São Paulo (Pedro & Camargo 1991), and to a lesser extent in arid areas in northeastern Brazil (Zanella & Martins 2003). Plenty of studies show evidences that Apis mellifera affects the reproductive success of different plant species (Gross & Mackay 1998, Hansen et al 2002, Carmo et al 2004) as well as the diversity and abundance of communities of native bees through resource competition (Roubik 1980, 2009, Roubik & Villanueva-Gutiérrez 2009.…”

Back to the future: Apis versus non-Apis pollination—a response to Ollerton et al.

“…Yet evidence of synergism within newly formed plantpollinator communities (those including exotic members) suggests that within such networks, the addition of plant or pollinator species stabilizes or enhances mutualisms [11]. New competitors facilitate mutualisms and promulgate resource partitioning, leading to shifts in foraging specialties.…”

“…New competitors facilitate mutualisms and promulgate resource partitioning, leading to shifts in foraging specialties. However, they do not necessarily cause population decline of native bees [11].…”

“…We are concerned that this cycle of scientists advancing questionable arguments for the importance of their work and the media accepting these arguments without scrutiny could result in a skewing of public attention and research funding in favour of honey bee diseases to the detriment of awareness and research on native pollinator declines and extinctions that would have a much greater effect on plant biodiversity. Twenty-three species of bees and 18 species of butterfly have been lost from England during the past 200 years and a reduction in numbers of wild bees and hoverflies in parts of Europe has been mirrored by declines in the plants they pollinate [11]. Maintenance of the terrestrial flora of the world is indeed critically dependant on animal pollinators [12].…”

Floral Resource Partitioning between Centris (Heterocentris) analis (Fabricius, 1804) and Centris (Heterocentris) terminata Smith, 1874 (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Centridini), in an Urban Fragment of the Atlantic Forest

“…Several studies showed the preferences of pollen types used by females of Centris to feed their larvae, as well, Centris flavifrons (Fabricius, 1775) (Rêgo et al, 2006), Centris maranhensis Ducke, 1910(Ramos et al, 2007, Centris caxienses (Ducke, 1907) (Ribeiro et al, 2008), Centris tarsata Smith, 1874 Dórea et al, 2009;Gonçalves et al, 2012;Cruz et al, 2015), Centris analis (Fabricius, 1804) (Quiróz-Garcia et al, 2001;Oliveira & Schlindwein, 2009;Roubik & Villanueva-Gutiérrez, 2009;Dórea et al, 2010;Rabelo et al, 2012;Santos et al, 2013), Centris trigonoides Lepeletier, 1841(Quiróz-Garcia et al, 2001Dórea et al, 2013) and Centris flavofasciata Friese, 1899 (Quiroz-Garcia & de la Arreguin-Sánchez, 2006). The number of species investigated thus far is less than 10% of the total of the genus known by science.…”