Nest sites, breeding cycle and possible cleptoparasites of Monoeca catarina Aguiar (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Tapinotaspidini) from Santa Catarina Island, southern Brazil

ABSTRACT

The recently described solitary bee Monoeca catarina Aguiar (Apidae, Tapinotaspidini) is only known from two nest aggregations on Santa Catarina Island, state of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. Nests are excavated in sandy soils along trails near dunes and beaches. Up to 287 nests were counted in one aggregation. Bees were active for about seven weeks from late November to mid-January suggesting a univoltine life cycle. Males perform patrolling flights over the nest area and mate with females sitting on low vegetation. Males and females visited Stachytarpheta cayennensis (Verbenaceae) for nectar, and females were observed foraging on Tetrapterys sp. or Heteropterys sp. flowers (Malpighiaceae). Pollen loads consisted almost exclusively of Malpighiaceae pollen. Potential natural enemies are the cleptoparasitic bee Protosiris Roig-Alsina sp. (Apidae, Osirini) recorded within the aggregations, and the mutillid wasp Hoplocrates specularis (Gerstaecker) (Mutillidae, Sphaeropthalmini) seen entering the Monoeca nests and mating within the aggregations. Except for the soil characteristics, our observations on nesting and foraging behavior and associated potential enemies fit well into the facts reported from other Monoeca species.

KEYWORDS:

• Nest aggregation
• mating behavior
• floral resources
• cleptoparasites
• Malpighiaceae
• Mutillidae

Geolocation information

Praia dos Naufragados, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil (point): 27°50ʹ2’’S, 48° 33ʹ39ʹ’W, Costão do Santinho, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil (point): 27°28ʹ18ʹ’S, 48°22ʹ57ʹ’W.

Acknowledgments

We thank Costão do Santinho Resort for granting access to the study site, Gabriel A.R Melo, UFPR Curitiba, and Diomedes Quintero, Museo de Invertebrados G. B. Fairchild, Panamá, for identifications of Protosiris bees and mutillid wasps, respectively, and Daniel Falkenberg, UFSC, Florianópolis, for identification of the Malpighiaceae tree. Claudia Mohra, Martin Fellendorf, Rafael Kamke and Eliana de Medeiros Oliveira kindly helped in the field and in the lab.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was part of the Project ‘Internal dynamics of rain forest: specificity of animal-plant interaction’ within the Brazilian-German program ‘Science and technology for the Mata Atl"ântica", and we acknowledge the financial support by BMBF [01LB0205 and 01LB0205A1] and CNPq [690143/01-0]. Financial support from IFS is also greatly acknowledged.