Composição da comunidade de vespas e abelhas solitárias em vegetação de restinga de Sergipe

Abstract

Cavity-nesting bees and wasps are himenopterans that nest in pre-existing cavities in natural environments, and play a key role in ecosystem functioning providing environmental Services such as pollination, and biological control. Here, we aimed at assessing the species composition of cavity-nesting bee and wasp community in restinga vegetation, and determine how climatic conditions influence nesting and assembly composition in restinga vegetation from Reserva Particular do Patrimônio Natural do Caju (RPPN). We used trap-nests and evaluations were conducted monthly over two years. We collected 735 nests from 4 bee species and 14 wasp species. Mostly nesting occurred in open areas during dry season, and decreased in the rainy season. The species composition differed for open areas and secondary vegetation, overall, contribution of beta diversity components tumover and nestedness was similar between vegetation types, but, in the dry season tumover was higher in secondary and shrubby vegetation. Conversely, shrubby vegetation was completely nested to open areas in both seasons and tumover was the main responsible for beta diversity over the time. In addition, we assessed how climatic conditions, vegetation type and arboreal strata influence Centris tarsata nesting, the most abundant bee species in RPPN do Caju. Overall, nesting was higher during the dry season, mostly in open areas at 1.5m height. However, in shrubby and secondary vegetations nesting seems to be favored by a specific rainfall and temperature range. Furthermore, the amount of brood cells, total number of adults and nest length were higher in open areas than other vegetation types. The results suggest that bees and wasps respond directly to climate conditions, and these arthropds show preference for nesting in places with greater resource availability such as building materiais and food for their offspring