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Abstract
Species richness and seasonality of a bee community were studied in a restinga area in Palhoça, Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. Twice a month during a year, from September 2004 to September 2005, bees were collected on flowers, in flight and with trap-nests. A total of 784 individuals belonging to 64 species of the families Apidae, Colletidae, Halictidae and Megachilidae were collected. Halictidae was the most rich and abundant family, followed by Apidae. Species richness peaks in summer whereas only a few species of Apidae and mainly Halictidae were active in the coldest months of the year. This clear seasonal pattern of activity appears to be a general characteristic of subtropical bee communities in Brazil. Comparison with others studies in restinga of Santa Catarina was made, as also the total apifauna of restinga in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná are presented.
Acknowledgements
For the license to collect bees in the study area we thank FATMA Florianópolis. We appreciate the kind help with identification of the bees by Gabriel A.R. Melo, Danúncia Urban, Antônio J.C. Aguiar, Rodrigo B. Gonçalves and Luiz R.R. Faria Jr., all Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, and Birgit Harter-Marques, Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense (UNESC), Criciúma, Santa Catarina. We also thank Simone Schmid for photos of the study area, Wolf Engels, University of Tübingen, Charles D. Michener, University of Kansas, Lawrence, and Jerome G. Rozen Jr., American Museum of Natural History, New York, for valuable comments on the manuscript. This study is part of the Project “Internal dynamics of rain forest: specificity of animal–plant interaction” within the Brazilian–German program “Mata Atlântica”, and we acknowledge the financial support by BMBF (01LB0205), CNPq (690143/01-0) and SESu (PET program) for a grant to R. Kamke.