Effects of habitat type change on taxonomic and functional composition of orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) in the Brazilian Amazon

• Published in: Journal of insect conservation 2018-08, Vol.22 (3-4), p.451-463
• Main Authors: Brito, Thaline F., Contrera, Felipe A. L., Phifer, Colin C., Knowlton, Jessie L., Brasil, Leandro S., Maués, Márcia M., Silva, Daniel P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal Ecology; Apidae; Bees; Biodiversity; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Body size; Composition; Conservation Biology/Ecology; Corridors; Cultivated lands; Entomology; Euglossini; Habitats; Land use; Life history; Life Sciences; Mathematical analysis; Oil palm trees; Original Paper; Parameters; Plantations; Redundancy; Sampling; Species composition; Species diversity; Species richness; Structural members; Taxonomy; Vegetable oils
• ISSN: 1366-638X; 1572-9753
• DOI: 10.1007/s10841-018-0073-9

Land use change impact species richness and functional diversity (FD). In the Brazilian Amazon, we examined the impacts of oil palm plantations on orchid bee (Apidae: Euglossini) species using abundance and FD. We collected male orchid bees in oil palm plantation (PALM), legal reserves (LR), and riparian corridors (APP), and then we used morphological and life-history traits to characterize each species. We evaluated differences in bee body size by comparing intertegular span values. We tested the influence of habitat on taxonomic and functional parameters of orchid bees by applying a partial redundancy analysis ( p RDA). We contrasted FD by calculating species richness, functional richness, and functional dispersion. We sampled 1176 bees from 30 species in 18 sampling days across 2015 and 2016. Males from PALM were 13.6% bigger than those in LR areas, and bees from APP showed a similar pattern compared to LR and PALM. Less than 15% of the variation in species composition was related to the distance among sampling sites, and 8% was due to habitat structure. In our p RDA, the spatial difference explained 6% of the variation in orchid bee traits, but there were no effects of habitat parameters upon FD. FD was reduced with land use change caused by oil palm plantations. Our findings support the belief that many bees are impacted by cultivated lands. Nevertheless, the functional similarity between LRs and APPs reflects common structural elements between them, although we did not find significant relationship between functional composition and habitat structure that we evaluated.