Keywords
Apifauna
Floral visitors
Neotropics
Pollination
Sustainable agroecosystems
How to Cite
Abstract
Bees provide a fundamental ecosystem service as pollinators, playing a central role in agrobiodiversity. Pollinator decline harms higher plant populations, directly impacting modern agricultural production. Bee disappearance is related to excessive changes in natural landscapes, brought about in agroecosystems via excessive floral simplification, intensive agrochemical use, and inadequate soil management. Agricultural management changes can mitigate bee population declines and promote sustainable development. Thus, inventorying potential pollinators in an agroecological area helps to provide primary data for comparing agroecosystem management schemes. Two bee collection campaigns in an agroecological field in western Brazil were conducted using complementary capture methods (passive and active) to optimize individual sampling. A total of 673 specimens, constituting 57 species, belonging to the five bee families occurring in Brazil, were collected. Within the sample, the presence of individuals sensitive to landscape changes and threatened by extinction may indicate that agroecological management sustains agrobiodiversity as it promotes greater floral diversity, involves less intensive soil management, and forbids pesticide use. Knowing this apifauna is essential for scientific research that seeks to understand this group as bioindicators of sustainability, comparing different types of management.
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