Distribuição e aspectos funcionais das comunidades de abelhas (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) do semiárido brasileiro

Abstract

Anthropogenic disturbances are becoming more intense, triggering changes in the composition of landscapes, affecting bee communities. Bees are among the main pollinators of angiosperms, and may present different responses regarding the structure of the landscape. Thus, there is a need to understand the effects of different land uses and occupation, such as agriculture, pasture, urban environment and natural areas, on functional diversity and on each functional attribute (sociability, foraging, nesting site and materials used for nest building) of bees in the Brazilian semi-arid region. Starting from the hypothesis that The functional diversity of bee communities present in Brazilian semi-arid landscapes is influenced by the predominant use and occupation of the soil And the different attributes are related in a distinct way with each use and occupation of the soil. The work was carried out from a database of bee occurrence in the Brazilian semi-arid region, prepared by Cunha, 2019, being updated and enriched with new occurrence records. Our analyzes did not detect a relationship between predominant land use and occupation in landscapes (Natural, Urban and Agricultural) and the functional diversity of bee communities in the Brazilian semiarid region, rejecting our first hypothesis. However, the different types of land use and occupation are related in different ways with the different functional traits of bees, corroborating our second hypothesis. This may be due to the sampled landscapes being highly heterogeneous, providing a greater diversity of niches and distinct resources, accommodating several distinct species in their functional characteristics.