A quanttatve baseline of ants and orchid bees in human-modified amazonian landscapes in Paragominas, Pará, Brazil

Abstract

The lack of effectve biodiversity baselines is a major impairment to implement conservaton plans. Hence, constructng and updatng species lists provides vital informaton about species distributon records. The Sustainable Amazon Network (in Portuguese Rede Amazônia Sustentável; RAS) is an interdisciplinary research initatve that aims to evaluate land-cover changes effects in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. Within the scope of this project, we sampled ants and orchid bees and herein present a list of species collected in Paragominas, PA, Brazil; the most complete lists of species published to date of these groups for the eastern Amazon. We sampled these insects across several land-cover types, from undisturbed forested habitats, through varyingly disturbed forested habitats and secondary forests to producton areas (silviculture, pastures and arable fields). In total we recorded 285 species of ants and 36 species of orchid bees. Species richness was higher in primary forests for both groups, followed by producton areas. Orchid bees reached their highest richness in secondary forests. For orchid bees, producton areas were dominated by a few hyper-dominant species, such as Eulaema nigrita. For future assessments if the aim is to make a complete inventory, we recommend the use of additonal sampling methods. Finally, we expect this study can be used as a baseline for understanding the effectveness of ongoing changes in forest conservaton and land management practces and in determining conservaton status for several taxa described here.