Impacto de Apis mellifera L. no comportamento de abelhas nativas e na rede de interações abelha-planta

Abstract

Apis mellifera is an invasive alien species that can impact native bees, for example by competition and overlapping resource use. Competition between A. mellifera and native bees can have negative effects causing the reduction of native bee populations. In addition, A. mellifera can have community-level effects, with network theory being a useful tool for understanding such impacts. In this paper we seek to review information about the interactions between A. mellifera and native bees and their main effects on the pollination ecosystem service (chapter 1). We conclude that A. mellifera has the potential to negatively impact native bees, as well as being less efficient in pollination. In addition, we record plant-bee interactions in the field to answer the following questions (chapter 2): 1) What is the overlap of resource use between A. mellifera and native bees throughout the day? 2) How do the structural properties of interaction networks (modularity, weighted nesting, and specialization) vary with respect to different frequencies of A. mellifera interactions? For this, floral visitation data were collected on ruderal plants in coffee crops at three times of day that were represented at three time intervals (7:00-09:00, 10:00-12:00 and 13:00- 15:00). Apis mellifera was more frequent in the period from 07:00-09:00 and from 13:00-15:00 (p <0.001 and p = 0.0147, respectively) when compared to native bees, which indicates a high overlap of use. resources at these times. In addition, A. mellifera has the potential to alter the structure of interaction networks. In the early morning, the network is characterized by a high frequency of interaction of A. mellifera, presenting lower specialization and modularity when compared to the late morning and early afternoon networks. Weighted nesting was higher in the first network, revealing that in this network there are mutualist partners with more frequent generalist interactions than partners with greater specialization in interactions. The results suggest that A. mellifera presents an opportunistic behavior in the search for resources because it has foraging ability before native bees. In addition, the results show that A. mellifera alters the structure of networks. Therefore, we emphasize the importance of further studies in areas that have suffered the presence of A. mellifera over the long term to assess what are the impacts on native flora and fauna.