Journal Title
Title of Journal: Apidologie
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Authors: Jaílson S de Novais Ana Cristina A Garcêz Maria Lúcia Absy Francisco de Assis R dos Santos
Publish Date: 2014/11/13
Volume: 46, Issue: 4, Pages: 417-431
Abstract
Tetragonisca angustula is a stingless bee species widely distributed in Brazil Past studies have shown a rich native flora supplying this meliponine with pollen and nectar The aim of this study was to compare the food provisions of T angustula in two areas in the Lower Amazon mesoregion in the state of Pará and two areas of caatinga vegetation in the state of Bahia Brazil We used a published data set of 57 samples of honey and 46 samples of pollen stored in colonies of T angustula The honeys from the Lower Amazon and from the caatinga displayed 23 and 16 pollen types with frequency higher than 10 respectively with emphasis on the families Fabaceae Solanaceae and Urticaceae In the pollen stored samples 18 and 11 pollen types were found respectively Cluster analyses Dice similarity performed with these published pollen spectra of the honeys grouped the samples from each geographic region with higher similarity than the analyses performed with the pollen spectra of the stored pollenThe Amazon Forest and the caatinga dry forest together form more than 5 million km2 equivalent to approximately 60 of the Brazilian territory IBGE 2004 The Amazon Forest extending over eight LatinAmerican countries in addition to Brazil is the largest tropical rainforest of the planet with a high precipitation level irregularly distributed in time and space Fisch et al 1998 In contrast the seasonally dry forests of the caatinga encompass different mosaics of vegetation subjected to a rigorous precipitation deficit Prado 2003 Disturbances in both of these biomes have threatened native bee populations and hindered the environmental services provided by them Freitas et al 2009 MaiaSilva et al 2012Recently in independent palynological studies we investigated the pollen spectra of honey and pollen stored by Tetragonisca angustula Latreille 1811 Apidae Meliponini from Amazonian Novais and Absy 2013 Novais and Absy in press and caatinga Novais et al 2013 2014 areasIn this manuscript we performed a comparative palynological analysis of the food provisions of T angustula based on the published data mentioned above The data on the pollen types found has been previously published but not qualitatively compared With this study we compiled the data set of plants foraged by T angustula in two biomes Amazon and caatinga and also perform a cluster analysis aiming to better understand the similarity of pollen diet of this species in different regions in Brazil one wet and another dryLocation of the study sites in the Lower Amazon map to the left and in the caatinga map to the right In the map of the South America in the center Brazil is colored in gray with emphasis on the states of Pará in the north region and Bahia in the northeast region The municipalities where the study was performed are represented by letters A Santarém B Belterra C Ruy Barbosa D ItaberabaIn total 103 samples were studied 57 samples of honey and 46 samples of pollen stored by T angustula The samples were collected in between September 2010 and January 2012 in the study sites of the Lower Amazon Belterra 16 and 15 samples of honey and pollen respectively and Santarém 14 and 8 samples and in the caatinga Itaberaba 13 and 10 samples of honey and pollen respectively and Ruy Barbosa 14 and 13 samples Novais and Absy 2013 Novais et al in press Novais and Absy 2013 2014
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