Foraging patterns and artificial fragrance choices of male orchid bees in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest

ABSTRACT

With the aim of increasing our knowledge concerning fragrance choices by male euglossine bees (Apidae, Euglossini), we investigated: (i) possible foraging patterns and choices of artificial fragrances explored by the most frequent species attracted to scent baits during the same season across consecutive years, sampled invariably in a same study area; (ii) the foraging patterns of populations of orchid bees surveyed in two similar forest habitats (Atlantic rainforest remnants) located 24 km apart, on Superagui Island (SI) and on a private reserve (RNSM), in southern Brazil. Although in both areas males attracted to scent baits were collected with insect nets and odour traps during the warm-wet season, the number of samplings were different in both study sites, totalling 15 samplings on RNSM and five on RNSM. In both areas four euglossine species were the most abundant: Euglossa annectans, E. stellfeldi, E. iopoecila and E. roderici. Overall, we can draw three main conclusions. Firstly, there were conspicuous patterns in regard to the set of fragrances visited by the four most abundant euglossine species over the three consecutive years of surveys on SI, with some shifts in fragrance choices found only for E. annectans and E. stellfeldi. Second, the most attractive fragrances used distinctively by each species were very similar in both study areas, indicating a local intraspecific similarity in the use of some main fragrances. Third, E. annectans showed a clear tendency to occupy a broader niche, which probably resulted in the highest percentages of niche overlap.

KEYWORDS:

• Atlantic Forest
• chemical baits
• dissimilarity
• Euglossine
• Euglossini
• scent baits

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to CAPES for the scholarship awarded to D.C. Giangarelli. We are especially grateful to Gabriel A.R. Melo (UFPR) for helping with species identification. We also thank the IBAMA (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e Recursos Naturais Renováveis), IAP (Instituto Ambiental do Paraná), and ICMBio (Instituto Chico Mendes) MMA for permission to collect bees; Universidade Estadual de Londrina for facilities and technical support; Guadalupe Vivekananda and Marcelo Bersolin for permission and support for the execution of this work on Superagui Island; and our colleagues at LAGEA for their assistance during sampling. S.H. Sofia receives a productivity research fellowship from CNPq (PQ 310211/2015-8).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico; [CNPq – 482410/2012-4]; Fundação Grupo Boticário de Proteção à Natureza; Fundação Araucária de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico do Estado do Paraná; [Conv. 22562]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior; [CAPES/PROCAD - 158/2007].