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

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.

Assemblages of Social Wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Polistinae) in the Veredas of Central Brazil

“…A much lower abundance of this species has been recorded in previous studies of social wasps (Richards 1978;Diniz & Kitayama, 1998;Elpino-Campos et al, 2007;Tanaka-Junior & Noll, 2011). The results of the present study indicate that social wasps of all three tribes, i.e., Epiponini, Mischocyttarini, and Polistini, can be classified as constant, accessory or accidental, which is consistent with previous studies (Togni et al, 2014;Souza et al, 2014;Souza et al, 2016;Santos et al, 2020). The accidental species were the most numerous overall, followed by the accessory taxa, with the constant species being the least common.…”

“…Given their abundance and ecological importance, social wasps have been and continue to be the subject of ecological studies in different regions and environments (Diniz & Kitayama, 1998;Souza & Prezoto, 2006;Silva et al, 2011;Da Silva et al, 2019;Clemente et al, 2020;Ferreira et al, 2020). In Brazil, these environments include the Cerrado savanna (Souza et al, 2012;Souza et al, 2020;Vicente et al, 2020), Atlantic Forest (Grandinete & Noll, 2013;Togni et al, 2014;Ribeiro et al, 2019;Souza et al, 2021), the semi-arid Northeast (Santos et al, 2020), the Amazon Forest (Silveira, 2002;Silveira et al, 2012;Somavilla & Oliveira, 2017;Graça & Somavilla, 2018;Gomes et al, 2020), and the Pantanal wetlands of Mato Grosso (Almeida et al, 2014). In the most recent study of the social wasps of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, Ferreira et al (2020) recorded 43 species.…”

A checklist of social wasps (Vespidae: Polistinae) from Tocantins state, Brazil

“…Among the six states bordering Tocantins, only Piauí has a lower species richness than the one presented herein, with 21 species (Santos et al, 2020). However, as seen in Tocantins, until recently Piauí has not been the target of taxonomic studies involving social wasps.…”

“…Both states have undergone comprehensive systematic studies over recent decades (Richards, 1978, Silveira, 2002Silva & Silveira, 2009). The richness of the other border states is relatively close to that of Tocantins -Bahia, with 86 species (Santos et al, 2020), Maranhão, with 77 (Silva et al, 2011;Santos et al, 2020), and Goiás, with 74 (Somavilla et al, 2021a). The states of Maranhão and Mato Grosso have the closest phytophysiognomies to that found in Tocantins, presenting fragments of Cerrado and Amazon within their territories and well-defined transition areas.…”

“…Brazil shelters the greatest richness of Polistinae worldwide, with 381 species recorded so far (Somavilla et al, 2021a;Hermes et al, 2022). Considering the richness and distribution of social wasps in other bordering states, like Pará, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, and Goiás (Santos et al, 2020;Somavilla et al, 2021a), these data are notoriously underestimated and show the lack of information about the richness of this taxon in Tocantins. Thereby, our goal was to perform a pioneer systematic work and present an update about the geographic records of the social wasp fauna in Tocantins.…”