Flower-visiting guild associated with the Caatinga flora: trophic interaction networks formed by social bees and social wasps with plants

Guilde de butineuses associée à la flore de la Caatinga : réseau d'intéractions trophiques formé entre les abeilles sociales, les guêpes sociales et les plantes

Gilberto M. de Mendonça Santos , Cândida M. Lima Aguiar , Marco A.R. Mello

We conducted a comparative analysis of bee-plant and wasp-plant interaction networks, aiming at the identification of similarities and differences between networks of flower-visiting groups with direct or indirect mutualism with plants. We measured for each network: number of social bees and social wasps, number of plants visited (P), degree of nestedness, number of observed (I) and possible interactions, connectance (C), and interaction density (D). The network formed by pooling together social bees and social wasps exhibited 25 species (12 bees and 13 wasps) and 49 visited plants, with a connectance of 15.34%. The wasp-plant network had higher connectance (C = 21.24) than the bee-plant network (C = 15.79). Both the social wasp-plant and the social bee-plant network were significantly nested, they presented structure more nested than all randomly generated matrices (n = 1000). Both interaction networks have similar topologies and are nested, asymmetrical and modular structures.

Mots clés: flower-visiting guild; food network; trophic interactions; semi-arid region<br>---<br>guilde de butineurs; réseau trophique; région semi-aride; relations plante-insecte; Brésil

Domaines: Zoologie des invertébrés; Biodiversité; Ecologie, Environnement; Science des productions animales

Gilberto M. de Mendonça Santos, Cândida M. Lima Aguiar, Marco A.R. Mello. Flower-visiting guild associated with the Caatinga flora: trophic interaction networks formed by social bees and social wasps with plants. Apidologie, 2010, 41 (4), ⟨10.1051/apido/2009081⟩. ⟨hal-00892070⟩