The bee fauna (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) in Cerrado and Cerrado-Amazon Rainforest transition sites in Tocantins state, Northern Region of Brazil

Abstract

Two sites located in Tocantins State, Brazil, were selected for the bee’s community survey. One of them was mostly covered by Cerrado vegetation and the other one is located in the Cerrado-Amazon Rainforest ecotone. Five expeditions were performed in each site throughout a 12-month period, between 2019 and 2020. The total of 771 bee specimens were collected and distributed into four families. Apidae presented the greatest species abundance and richness, it was followed by Halictidae, Megachilidae and Andrenidae, respectively. Trigona pallens (Fabricius) (Apidae) was the species presenting the greatest abundance in both sites, it totaled 118 specimens, which corresponded to 26.9% of the total abundance of individuals belonging to tribe Meliponini. In general, the community presented several species with few individuals and few species with many individuals. Bee collections were performed by using three different methodologies, among them one finds sampling based on the entomological net method, which allowed collecting the largest number of both individuals and species in comparison to the other used methods. Based on the frequency and abundance classes, only few species were classified as very frequent (VF) and very abundant (VA) in both sites based on the frequency and abundance classes. Most species were constant (W) in both regions, and there was a small number of dominant species (D); moreover, more than 70% of the sampled species were considered accidental (Z). According to the present study, either Cerrado or Cerrado-Amazon Rainforest studied sites presented higher species richness than other sites in these biomes sampled in Brazil.

Overview of Stingless Bees in Brazil (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini)

“…The data presented here are in agreement with CamaRgo et al (2013) JaRamillo et al 2019;nogueiRa 2016;nogueiRa et al 2017nogueiRa et al , 2019nogueiRa et al , 2020anogueiRa et al , 2020bnogueiRa et al , 2021nogueiRa et al , 2022anogueiRa et al , 2022bguevaRa et al 2020;oliveiRa et al 2020;alvaRez et al 2021;alves et al 2021;engel 2021a, 2021bengel et al 2021;Felix & FReitas 2021;baRRos et al 2022;engel 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, 2022dFeRReiRa et al 2022;RibeiRo et al 2023).…”