Negative impacts of dominance on bee communities: Does the influence of invasive honey bees differ from native bees?

Invasive species can reach high abundances and dominate native environments. One of the most impressive examples of ecological invasions is the spread of the African subspecies of the honey bee throughout the Americas, starting from its introduction in a single locality in Brazil. The invasive honey bee is expected to more negatively impact bee community abundance and diversity than native dominant species, but this has not been tested previously.

Association of Pollinators of Different Species of Oil Palm with the Metabolic Profiling of Volatile Organic Compounds.

The development of studies on emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by inflorescence of oil palms deserves a special attention regarding the importance to reproduction success and for increase of production. This study aimed to evaluate metabolic profiling of VOCs expelled by male and female inflorescences of different oil palm species (African oil palm, Amazonian Caiaué and the interspecific hybrid BRS-Manicoré), associating the composition variability with main pollinators to improve the comprehension of the plant-insect relationship. The phenylpropanoids, terpenoids and the aliphatic hydrocarbons were predominant classes detected in inflorescences of oil palms and the major compound was estragole.

Nocturnal Bee Pollinators Are Attracted to Guarana Flowers by Their Scents.

Floral scent is an important component of the trait repertoire of flowering plants, which is used to attract and manipulate pollinators. Despite advances during the last decades about the chemicals released by flowers, there is still a large gap in our understanding of chemical communication between flowering plants and their pollinators. We analyzed floral scents of guarana (, Sapindaceae), an economically important plant of the Amazon, using chemical analytical approaches, and determined the attractiveness of the scent to its nocturnal bee pollinators using behavioral assays in the field.

[The use of different methods to sample the bee fauna (Hymenoptera: Apoidea), a study in the mixed temperate rainforest in Santa Catarina State].

A survey of the bee fauna of Araucaria Forest was performed in the border of a fragment in the district of Porto União, in Santa Catarina State. Samples were carried on monthly between October/2005 and October/2006 with hand nets directly on the flowers, besides three types of traps: chemical baits, trap nests and pantraps. A total of 1711 bees were captured belonging to 164 species, distributed in five families of bees that occur in Brazil.