1 The impact of agricultural colonization and deforestation on stingless bee (Apidae: 2 Meliponini) composition and richness in Rondônia, Brazil 3 4 J. Christopher BROWN1, Marcio Luiz de OLIVEIRA2 5 6 1 Department of Geography, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Blvd., 223, Lawrence, 7 KS 66045, USA.
[email protected] 8 2 Coordenação de Pesquisas em Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da 9 Amazônia, Av. André Araújo 2936, Caixa postal 2223, Manaus, AM 69060-971, Brazil. 10
[email protected] 11 12 Short title: Deforestation and stingless bees 13 14 Abstract 15 Stingless bees were collected throughout the state of Rondônia in the southwestern 16 Brazilian Amazon for one year. The impact of agricultural colonization and subsequent 17 deforestation on species composition and richness is explored. Deforestation, around each 18 of 187 sample sites, was characterized at meso, micro, and local spatial scales. At the 19 micro-scale, deforestation was measured using a data layer generated by satellite remote 20 sensing and analyzed with the assistance of a geographic information system. We report 21 perhaps the greatest richness of stingless bees ever recorded in the tropics, collecting 22 9,555 individuals from 98 species of stingless bees. Ten of these are new species and 16 23 were first-ever records for Rondônia. Five new species were scientifically described from 1 24 the study. We report statistical relationships between deforestation and species richness at 25 all spatial scales of analysis, and we tentatively identify species that appear to be 26 especially sensitive to deforestation. 27 28 Key-words: social bees; redundancy analysis; forest fragmentation; land use; 29 Amazon 30 2 31 1.