Thermoregulation in the large carpenter bee Xylocopa frontalis in the face of climate change in the Neotropics
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Original article
Thermoregulation in the large carpenter bee Xylocopa frontalis in the face of climate change in the Neotropics Felipe Jackson de FARIAS-SILVA , Breno M. FREITAS Setor de Abelhas, Departamento de Zootecnia, Centro de Ciências Agrárias, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, CE 60.356-000, Brazil Received 13 April 2020 – Revised 28 September 2020 – Accepted 28 October 2020
Abstract – There is evidence that climate change may worsen the ecological conditions needed by many pollinator species for their survival; however, little is known about how the rise in ambient temperature might affect the survival of large bee species in tropical regions of the planet. This study investigated the thermoregulation mechanisms of the large carpenter bee Xylocopa frontalis when nesting spontaneously in nests designed to allow direct measurement of the bees’ temperature while carrying out different activities. It was seen that the species divides its activities throughout the day according to the amount of body heat generated and the ambient temperature, performing activities that generate more body heat at cooler times of the day. The bees also use strategies of thermoregulation, such as heat loss by air convection, evaporative cooling by nectar dehydration, and not foraging during the hottest times of the day to avoid overheating. The study shows that X. frontalis is well adjusted to the ecological conditions of the areas in which it lives but suggests that future rises in the ambient temperature could pose a serious threat to the survival and pollination services provided by this bee and other similar tropical species. bodytemperature / foragingstrategy / global warming / behavioural thermoregulation / thermoregulation inthe tropics
1. INTRODUCTION Pollinators are essential for the reproduction of wild plants and for food production around the world, with approximately 35% of agricultural production and 87.5% of flowering plants depending to some degree on these agents (Klein et al. 2007, Klein et al. 2020; Ollerton et al. 2011; Potts et al. 2016). However, pollinators are in decline all over the world due to a variety of reasons,
Corresponding author: F. Farias-Silva, [email protected] Manuscript Editor: Klaus Hartfelder
such as habitat loss and fragmentation, pests, diseases, invasive species, pesticides and climate change (Freitas et al. 2009; Meeus et al. 2012; Potts et al. 2016; Brown et al. 2016). Among these, climate change is worrisome, as it can compromise pollination services on a global scale via isolated extreme events, such as fires, storms and hurricanes, but mainly due to global warming and a gradual rise in the mean temperature in different regions of the planet. Such events can compromise the survival of pollinators, leading to significant reductions in population (Freitas et al. 2009; Rasmont and Iserbyt 2012; Oliver et al. 2015; Brown et al. 2016), or to temporal mismatch between pollinators and the flowering of crops, which
F. J. de Farias-Silva, B. M. Freitas
represents a gre
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