Recursos polínicos utilizados por Melipona obscurior Moure e Apis mellifera Linnaeus na Mata Atlântica no sul do Brasil : subsídios para o manejo de polinizadores e a conservação da biodiversidade

• Ano de defesa: 2012
• Autor(a) principal: Hilgert-moreira, Suzane Both
• Orientador(a): Blochtein, Betina
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia
• Departamento: Faculdade de Biociências
• País: BR
• Palavras-chave em Português: BIOLOGIA; ZOOLOGIA; INSETOS E PLANTAS; ABELHAS; POLINIZAÇÃO; FLORESTA ATLÂNTICA; FLORESTAS - RIO GRANDE DO SUL
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::ZOOLOGIA
• Link de acesso: http://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/243

Commonly called stingless bee, species belonging to the tribe Meliponini are found in Brazil, predominantly in woods of Atlantic Forest. The growing degradation of this ecosystem results in risks to the conservation of these species. In this context is inserted Melipona obscurior Moure which is, nowadays, considered vulnerable to extinction in Rio Grande do Sul. Cohabiting in this same ecosystem one can be found Apis mellifera Linnaeus, whose rusticity allowed its spreading and fitness to different environments. Both species present perennial colonies with a big number of individuals that need food during all year. As is characteristic to social bees, they have generalist foraging behavior, making use of different flower sources to obtain pollen and nectar. Foraging activities are directly related to abiotic factors that interfere on fenology, on resources availability and on flight conditions for bees. With this, the floral resources are explored by both in a different way, in foraging strategies characteristics to each one. To identify the plants species whose pollinic resources compose the trophic niche of M. obscurior and A. mellifera, in southern Brazil, as well as the dynamic in the use of these resources, during one year of sampling, was the goal of this survey. For this study, two areas inserted into Atlantic Forest Biome, northeast Rio Grande do Sul, were used. Colonies of two species were maintained in standard hives and the pollinic resources used by them were collected, identified and analyzed. So, the number of pollinic sources used by A. mellifera was bigger in relation to M. obscurior, with representativeness in the samples that resulted in different trophic niche breadth indices, along the year. Some of these sources were explored more intensely or, yet, exclusively by one of bee species, as an indicative of temporal specialization behavior, mainly related to M. obscurior. The overlap in the use of some of these resources occurred in the most samples, but, in a diferente way. The most intense pollen sharing was related to plant species whose massive flowerings allowed concomitant use of their pollen. Here one emphasizes Eucalyptus spp. whose use in the pollinic diet was similar for both species, regardless of landscape characteristics of each area.The pollinic resources that compose the actual trophic niche of M. obscurior and A. mellifera and the dynamic of these resource partioning have, until now, allowed the coexistence of both in the two study sites.