Trap-nesting bees communities from protected areas of Atlantic forest, Southeastern Brazil

The solitary bees that use preexisting cavities can be captured in trap-nests allowing to collect data on nesting biology and associated organisms. This man-made trap-nest facilitates the understanding of environmental components and landscape composition in the fauna of solitary bees. Here, we aimed to increase the knowledge about trapnesting bee species from four protected areas Atlantic Forest in southeastern Brazil and to test how abiotic local environmental components (temperature and rainfall) and forest cover affects the trap-nesting bee fauna. We recorded occupants from 847 nests founded by 17 bee species and seven cleptoparasite bees, associated to their host, summing 24 bee species sampled. The family with highest species richness was Megachilidae, and the species with the largest number of founded nests was Tetrapedia diversipes Klug (Apidae). Diptera, coleoptera, and hymenoptera parasitized 15.2% of the founded nests. The period of highest nest occupation occurred between November and February, which correspond to the warmest and most humid months in the region. We found significant positive correlation between the number of nests and monthly accumulated rainfall. We verified that Boraceia and Ilhabela have the best status conservation based on native forest cover and we sampled the highest diversity of species in these areas. We improved the knowledge on trap-nesting bees communities from Atlantic Forest on new species sampled in this biome with their nesting biology and highlighted that rainfall influences positively the nest founding throughout the year and native forest cover influences diversity of species.