Geometric morphometrics of the wings of Amazonian species of Melipona (Illiger, 1806) (Hymenoptera: Apidae).

Identifying and classifying species of stingless Neotropical bees is not a trivial task and requires the help of taxonomists and substantial study and training time. Also, there is a lack of taxonomically useful characters to differentiate among the megadiverse Neotropical group of stingless bees, and to recognize variation. Based on that, we have been testing alternatives to a character-based, efficient taxonomic determination of stingless bees, and herein we performed exploratory analyses of wing shape variation using geometric morphometrics.

Unraveling the plant diversity of the Amazonian through DNA barcoding.

The of the Serra dos Carajás, in Eastern Amazon, is home to a unique open plant community, harboring several endemic and rare species. Although a complete flora survey has been recently published, scarce to no genetic information is available for most plant species of the ironstone outcrops of the Serra dos Carajás. In this scenario, DNA barcoding appears as a fast and effective approach to assess the genetic diversity of the Serra dos Carajás flora, considering the growing need for robust biodiversity conservation planning in such an area with industrial mining activities.

Flora of Ferruginous Outcrops Under Climate Change: A Study in the of Carajás (Eastern Amazon).

Climate change has impacted biodiversity, affecting species and altering their geographical distribution. Besides understanding the impact in the species, it has been advocated that answering if different traits will be differently impacted could allow refined predictions of how climate change will jeopardize biodiversity. Our aim was to evaluate if climate change will potentially impact plant species differently, considering their traits.

A global-scale expert assessment of drivers and risks associated with pollinator decline.

Pollinator decline has attracted global attention and substantial efforts are underway to respond through national pollinator strategies and action plans. These policy responses require clarity on what is driving pollinator decline and what risks it generates for society in different parts of the world. Using a formal expert elicitation process, we evaluated the relative regional and global importance of eight drivers of pollinator decline and ten consequent risks to human well-being.

Edible Fruit Plant Species in the Amazon Forest Rely Mostly on Bees and Beetles as Pollinators.

Edible fruit plants of tropical forests are important for the subsistence of traditional communities. Understanding the most important pollinators related to fruit and seed production of these plants is a necessary step to protect their pollination service and assure the food security of these communities. However, there are many important knowledge gaps related to floral biology and pollination in megadiverse tropical rainforests, such as the Amazon Forest, due mainly to the high number of plant species.

Climate-induced distribution dynamics of , a stingless bee from Brazilian tropical dry forests.

Aim: The objective of this study is to estimate the current potential geographic distribution of and to evaluate the influence of climate on the dynamics of suitable habitat availability in the past and in the future.

Location: Northeast region of Brazil and dry forest areas.

Methods: The habitat suitability modeling was based on two algorithms, two global circulation models, and six different scenarios.

Size and isolation of naturally isolated habitats do not affect plant-bee interactions: A case study of ferruginous outcrops within the eastern Amazon forest.

Pollination may be severely affected by the decreasing size and increasing isolation of habitat patches. However, most studies that have considered the effects of these two variables on plant-pollinator interactions have been carried out in areas that have undergone anthropogenic fragmentation, and little is known about their effects in natural habitats. The Carajás National Forest and Campos Ferruginosos National Park are two protected areas in the eastern Amazon where one can find isolated ferruginous outcrops characterized by iron-rich soil and herbaceous-shrub vegetation surrounded by Amazon forest.

The Value of Crop Production and Pollination Services in the Eastern Amazon.

Nature safeguards living organisms and the ecosystem functions and services delivered by them. Animal pollination is an important Ecosystem Service since it plays a key role for achieving the sustainable development goals by safeguarding worldwide food production. Thus, conservation of pollination services is a major priority for guaranteeing global food security in the long term.

Combining genotype, phenotype, and environmental data to delineate site-adjusted provenance strategies for ecological restoration.

Despite the importance of climate-adjusted provenancing to mitigate the effects of environmental change, climatic considerations alone are insufficient when restoring highly degraded sites. Here we propose a comprehensive landscape genomic approach to assist the restoration of moderately disturbed and highly degraded sites. To illustrate it we employ genomic data sets comprising thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms from two plant species suitable for the restoration of iron-rich Amazonian Savannas.

A dataset of multi-functional ecological traits of Brazilian bees.

Worldwide, bees are the most important group of animal pollinators. The ecosystem service they provide is vital in natural areas and croplands, and the taxonomic and functional diversity associated with bees is vital in understanding ecosystem functioning ensuring biodiversity conservation, food security and human livelihoods. A dataset of bees from mountainous areas of Carajás National Forest (eastern Amazon) and Nova Lima (Atlantic Forest) is presented here.

Stingless Bees (Melipona subnitida) Overcome Severe Drought Events in the Brazilian Tropical Dry Forest by Opting for High-Profit Food Sources.

In the Brazilian Tropical Dry Forest, the Caatinga, stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini) need to adjust their foraging behavior to a very short and unpredictable blooming period. Melipona subnitida Ducke 1910 is one of the few meliponine species adapted to the environmental peculiarities of this biome. To get an insight into how these highly eusocial bees are able to maintain their perennial colonies despite extended periods of food scarcity, we asked the following questions: (1) At which plant species do colonies of M.

An Amazon stingless bee foraging activity predicted using recurrent artificial neural networks and attribute selection.

Bees play a key role in pollination of crops and in diverse ecosystems. There have been multiple reports in recent years illustrating bee population declines worldwide. The search for more accurate forecast models can aid both in the understanding of the regular behavior and the adverse situations that may occur with the bees.

Habitat Loss Does Not Always Entail Negative Genetic Consequences.

Although habitat loss has large, consistently negative effects on biodiversity, its genetic consequences are not yet fully understood. This is because measuring the genetic consequences of habitat loss requires accounting for major methodological limitations like the confounding effect of habitat fragmentation, historical processes underpinning genetic differentiation, time-lags between the onset of disturbances and genetic outcomes, and the need for large numbers of samples, genetic markers, and replicated landscapes to ensure sufficient statistical power. In this paper we overcame all these challenges to assess the genetic consequences of extreme habitat loss driven by mining in two herbs endemic to Amazonian savannas.

Queen Execution, Diploid Males, and Selection For and Against Polyandry in the Brazilian Stingless Bee .

Female mating frequency varies. Determining the causes of this variation is an active research area. We tested the hypothesis that in stingless bees, Meliponini, single mating is due to the execution of queens that make a matched mating at the complementary sex determination locus and have diploid male offspring.

Landscape genomics to the rescue of a tropical bee threatened by habitat loss and climate change.

Habitat degradation and climate change are currently threatening wild pollinators, compromising their ability to provide pollination services to wild and cultivated plants. Landscape genomics offers powerful tools to assess the influence of landscape modifications on genetic diversity and functional connectivity, and to identify adaptations to local environmental conditions that could facilitate future bee survival. Here, we assessed range-wide patterns of genetic structure, genetic diversity, gene flow, and local adaptation in the stingless bee a tropical pollinator of key biological and economic importance inhabiting one of the driest and hottest regions of South America.

Climate change impact on ecosystem functions provided by birds in southeastern Amazonia.

Although the impacts of climate change on biodiversity are increasing worldwide, few studies have attempted to forecast these impacts on Amazon Tropical Forest. In this study, we estimated the impact of climate change on Amazonian avian assemblages considering range shifts, species loss, vulnerability of ecosystem functioning, future effectiveness of current protected areas and potential climatically stable areas for conservation actions. Species distribution modelling based on two algorithms and three different scenarios of climate change was used to forecast 501 avian species, organized on main ecosystem functions (frugivores, insectivores and nectarivores) for years 2050 and 2070.

Stingless bees and their adaptations to extreme environments.

Nearly half of all terrestrial tropical ecosystems around the globe comprise dry forests, characterised through elevated temperatures all year round, and short rainy seasons at irregular intervals. The consequent water deficit over several consecutive months limits the availability of floral resources to often very brief and unpredictable periods, which poses a challenge to the maintenance of perennial colonies in highly eusocial bees. Thus, only few highly eusocial bees occur permanently in tropical dry forests, among them some highly adapted species of stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini).

Mapping and quantification of ferruginous outcrop savannas in the Brazilian Amazon: A challenge for biodiversity conservation.

The eastern Brazilian Amazon contains many isolated ferruginous savanna ecosystem patches (locally known as 'canga vegetation') located on ironstone rocky outcrops on the top of plateaus and ridges, surrounded by tropical rainforests. In the Carajás Mineral Province (CMP), these outcrops contain large iron ore reserves that have been exploited by opencast mining since the 1980s. The canga vegetation is particularly impacted by mining, since the iron ores that occur are associated with this type of vegetation and currently, little is known regarding the extent of canga vegetation patches before mining activities began.

Genetic Variability of Melipona subnitida (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in Introduced and Native Populations.

Melipona subnitida (Hymenoptera: Apidae) is a stingless bee native to Caatinga biome in Brazil, well adapted to hot and dry climate of that region and has been traditionally explored for honey production. Here, we evaluate the genetic structure of 173 colonies of M. subnitida in northeast Brazil by partially sequenced mitochondrial genes cytochrome oxidase I (COI) to compare an introduced population isolated for 30 yr into the Island of Fernando de Noronha (IFN) with the continental populations.

Quillworts from the Amazon: A multidisciplinary populational study on Isoetes serracarajensis and Isoetes cangae.

Isoetes are ancient quillworts members of the only genus of the order Isoetales. The genus is slow evolving but is resilient, and widespread worldwide. Two recently described species occur in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon, Isoetes serracarajensis and Isoetes cangae.

Landscape Genomic Conservation Assessment of a Narrow-Endemic and a Widespread Morning Glory From Amazonian Savannas.

Although genetic diversity ultimately determines the ability of organisms to adapt to environmental changes, conservation assessments like the widely used International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Criteria do not explicitly consider genetic information. Including a genetic dimension into the IUCN Red List Criteria would greatly enhance conservation efforts, because the demographic parameters traditionally considered are poor predictors of the evolutionary resilience of natural populations to global change. Here we perform the first genomic assessment of genetic diversity, gene flow, and patterns of local adaptation in tropical plant species belonging to different IUCN Red List Categories.

Projected climate change threatens pollinators and crop production in Brazil.

Animal pollination can impact food security since many crops depend on pollinators to produce fruits and seeds. However, the effects of projected climate change on crop pollinators and therefore on crop production are still unclear, especially for wild pollinators and aggregate community responses. Using species distributional modeling, we assessed the effects of climate change on the geographic distribution of 95 pollinator species of 13 Brazilian crops, and we estimated their relative impacts on crop production.