A scientific note on the first record of nesting sites of Peponapis crassidentata (Hymenoptera: Apidae).

DELGADO CARRILLO OLIVERIO; LOPEZARAIZA MIKEL MARTHA; ASHWORTH LORENA; AGUILAR RAMIRO; LOBO JORGE; QUESADA MAURICIO; LOBO JORGE; QUESADA MAURICIO

APIDOLOGIE

EDP SCIENCES S A

Año: 2017 vol. 48 p. 644 - 647

0044-8435

Peponapis is a genus of solitary bees that breeds once a year, nests in the ground, and is distributed exclusivelyin the Americas. Mexico is considered its center of origin, holding all 15 currently known species of Peponapis (Hurd et al. 1971; Ayala and Griswold2012). Peponapis spp. are closely associated with the plant genus Cucurbita (Hurd et al. 1971; Hurd et al. 1974), whose center of origin is also Mexico (LiraSaade 1995). Peponapis pruinosa (Say, 1837) in North America and Peponapis limitaris (Cockerell, 1906) in Mexico are the most effective pollinators of Cucurbita spp. (e.g., Canto-Aguilar and Parra-Tabla 2000; Minter and Bessin 2014). The pollen of Cucurbita also seems to be the main food source of some Peponapis sp. larvae (Hurd et al. 1974). Little is known about the natural history of most Peponapis species, and only nest descriptions of P. pruinosa (Mathewson 1968; Hurd et al. 1974), P. fervens (Smith, 1879) (Michener and Lange 1958; Krug et al. 2010), and P. utahensis (Cockerell, 1905) (Rozen and Ayala 1987) are known under natural conditions.