Wild bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) in an urban botanical garden in Buenos Aires, Argentina

NADIA M. MAZZEO; JUAN PABLO TORRETTA

STUDIES ON NEOTROPICAL FAUNA AND ENVIRONMENT

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 50 p. 182 - 193

0165-0521

We assessed bee diversity and abundance in abotanical garden in the city of Buenos Aires during two consecutivespring-summer periods. Every fifteen days, we collected by hand-netting beespecimens seen foraging on flowers during five-minute censuses at everyentomophilous herbaceous plant. A total of 66 bee species (Hymenoptera:Apoidea) were recorded. Richness and abundance of native, generalist, and above-groundnesting (cavities) species were higher than that of exotic, specialist, and below-ground(soil) nesting ones, respectively. Social bees were more abundant, while therichness of solitary species was higher than that of social bees. Cleptoparasiticspecies were represented by a high number of species, even though only a fewindividuals were captured. Our results suggest that the studied area is animportant bee reservoir within the city