The importance of legal reserve for predator social wasp diversity in an agroecosystem in the Brazilian Cerrado

ABSTRACT

Social wasps play an important role in controlling agricultural pests. The present study aimed to investigate the differences in abundance, species richness and composition of social wasps (Vespidae: Polistinae) between a Cerrado legal reserve, edge and agricultural matrix in an agricultural farm in Mato Grosso, Brazil. We delimited three transects and used Malaise traps which remained active for 48 hours, and were distributed equidistant over five distances from the edge to the legal reserve and agricultural matrix. In total, we collected 618 individuals and 31 species of social wasps. Our results showed that social wasp abundance was similar between the legal reserve and agricultural matrix during three stages and species richness only non-cropping stage. A similar pattern was observed for composition similarity, which presented a lower value between the legal reserve and agricultural matrix during the non-cropping stage. Our results indicate that although monoculture areas can offer food resources and be attractive to social wasps during the active cropping stages, these areas cannot host and conserve the diversity of social wasps. Legal reserve areas, for maintaining the diversity and ecosystem services provided by social wasps.

KEYWORDS:

• Native habitat
• ecosystem service
• predatory wasps

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Mato Grosso (FAPEMAT) - Projeto Rede de Biotecnologia Aplicada aos Serviços e Desserviços da Biodiversidade à Agricultura no Cerrado e na Amazônia. We are especially grateful to Mayra Layra dos Santos Almeida, Gabriel Santos Carvalho and Carlos Barbosa de Andrade for collection and fieldwork assistance. We are also grateful to the Franciosi group owners for supporting the research and logistics. We would like to express our thanks to the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), the Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso (UNEMAT) and the Programa de Pós-graduação em Ambiente e Sistemas de Produção Agrícola (PPGASP).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01650521.2022.2147045

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Mato Grosso [0476362/2017].