New records and knowledge about the distribution of Eumeninae and Zethinae (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in protected areas of the Atlantic Forest in southern BrazilAbstract
Eumeninae and Zethinae are currently treated as subfamilies within the Vespidae and, despite providing several ecosystem services, they are poorly sampled in Brazilian biomes, such as the Atlantic Forest. The Atlantic Forest is a global biodiversity hotspot that has historically faced various anthropogenic pressures, leading to the loss of 87% of its native vegetation cover. This condition underscores the need for studies on the occurrence and distribution of biota in this biome. The present study aimed at surveying these taxa in different protected areas of Atlantic Forest domain, in the State of Paraná, southern Brazil. Field work was carried out at Parque Nacional Ilha Grande, Parque Nacional do Iguaçu and Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista, between 2019 and 2022. A total of 16 species of Eumeninae and two of Zethinae were registered, of which 44% are considered new records for Paraná. The large number of new records is a direct result of the lack of information about these taxa in the State. Considering the current trend of accelerated biome loss in Brazil, especially concerning the Atlantic Forest, studies focusing on the knowledge of local and regional faunas are urgent, in wasps of the Vespidae family.
Keywords:
diversity; fauna inventory; solitary wasp; arthropoda
Resumo
Eumeninae e Zethinae são atualmente tratadas como subfamílias da família Vespidae e, embora desempenhem diversos serviços ecossistêmicos, são pouco amostradas nos biomas brasileiros, principalmente na Mata Atlântica. A Mata Atlântica é um hotspot global de biodiversidade que, historicamente, tem sofrido diversas pressões antrópicas, resultando na perda de 87% de sua cobertura vegetal nativa. Essa condição justifica a realização de estudos sobre a ocorrência e distribuição da biota nesse bioma. Este estudo teve como objetivo realizar um levantamento desses táxons em diferentes áreas de domínio da Mata Atlântica, no estado do Paraná, Sul do Brasil. O trabalho de campo foi realizado no Parque Nacional da Ilha Grande, no Parque Nacional do Iguaçu e no Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista, entre 2019 e 2022. Um total de 16 espécies de Eumeninae e duas de Zethinae foram registradas, das quais 44% são consideradas novos registros para o Paraná. O alto número de registros inéditos é resultado da escassez de informações sobre esses táxons no estado. Considerando o atual cenário de perda acelerada de biomas no Brasil, especialmente no que diz respeito à Mata Atlântica, estudos que visem ao conhecimento da fauna local e regional são urgentes, principalmente com as vespas da família Vespidae.
Palavras-chave:
diversidade; inventário de fauna; vespa solitária; arthropoda
1. Introduction
The Atlantic Forest is part of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots due to its degradation history and ecological importance (Mittermeier et al., 2011; Myers et al., 2000). This tropical rainforest provides several ecosystem services such as climatic regulation, pollination, erosion control and ecological tourism (Joly et al., 2014). Also, the biome presents a high rate of endemism, hosting more than 50% of the threatened species in Brazil (ICMBIO, 2018). Approximately 65% of the Brazilian population reside within the limits of the biome, being responsible for around 80% of the country's GDP (IBGE, 2022), a fact that is a major contributor to the deforestation and modification of the biome, resulting in more than 85% loss of its original covering (Ribeiro et al., 2009; Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, 2024).
The creation of protected areas (PAs) helps to protect threatened biomes, such as the Atlantic Forest, because they aim at preserving the biodiversity as well as the natural heritage represented in such areas (Rylands and Brandon, 2005; Manetta et al., 2015), being considered the most powerful tool for the conservation of the biota of Brazil (Salvio, 2017).
Knowing which species occur in potential areas for conservation is key to enhancing the creation and maintenance of PAs (Oliveira et al., 2024), with faunistic surveys being fundamental in that regard (Silveira et al., 2010). These surveys, however, usually concentrate on vertebrates (Santos, 2003; Garcia and Candiani, 2017), resulting in an under sampling of insects. These collecting gaps include the wasps of the subfamilies Eumeninae and Zethinae, with studies carried out at the Atlantic Forest of Paraná State (e.g., Lopes and Hermes, 2015; Oliveira and Gonçalves, 2017).
The Eumeninae are the most specious group within the vespids, with more than 3,844 species recorded worldwide (Perrard et al., 2017; Rahmani et al., 2020). These reports, however, include Zethinae as a tribe within the eumenines (Hermes et al., 2014). However, Zethinae is sometimes treated as a distinct subfamily, considered a sister group to the eusocial wasps (Piekarski et al., 2018). Nevertheless, both groups are traditionally poorly sampled and studied (Souza et al., 2024), especially when compared to their social relatives (Jacques et al., 2024). For these reasons, the main goal of the present study was to survey the fauna of vespids in the subfamilies Eumeninae and Zethinae occurring in Atlantic Forest remnants within protected areas in the State of Paraná, southern Brazil.
2. Methodology
Collection of the specimens was carried out in three protected areas in the State of Paraná, all of them within the limits of the Atlantic Forest (Figure 1): Parque Nacional da Ilha Grande (PNIG) (23°40'12.0"S 53°59'40.4"W), including the Paraná River between the States of Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul, near the border with Paraguay, between February and November 2019; Parque Nacional do Iguaçu (PNI) (25°27'37.0"S 53°49'04.3"W) and Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista (RBBV) (25°26'54.6"S 54°33'15.9"W), in the far west of the State of Paraná adjacent to the border with Paraguay and Argentina between September 2021 and April 2022.
Colletcting sites of Eumeninae and Zethinae (Vespidae) in the Atlentic Forest of the State of Paraná, south Brazil: (1) Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista; (2) Parque Nacional do Iguaçú; (3) Parque Nacional da Ilha Grande.
The specimens were collected activelly using entomological nets, with the collector walking through existing paths inside and in the border of the forest remnants, preferably near to water bodies (Figure 2), with wasps being captured during flight, landed on the vegetation or on their nests. All wasps were killed and preserved in 70% ethanol and subsequently taken to the Zoology Laboratory of the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sul de Minas Gerais, Campus Inconfidentes, where they were mounted in insect pins. They were then sent to Dr. Marcel G. Hermes for identification, using specialized keys (e.g., Bohart and Stange, 1965; Carpenter and Garcete-Barrett, 2003) and through comparison with previously identified specimens in the Coleção Entomológica da Universidade Federal de Lavras (CEUFLA), where all specimens are housed.
Protected areas in the State of Paraná, South Brazil, where specimens of Eumeninae and Zethinae (Vespidae) were collected: Parque Nacional Ilha Grande (A), Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista (B), and Parque Nacional do Iguaçu (C and D). Source: the authors (B,C and D), RETUR, Rede empresarial de Turismo (A).
3. Results and Discussion
A total of 39 specimens belonging to 16 species of Eumeninae and two species of Zethinae were collected (Table 1). Of these, six new records of Eumeninae (Figures 3 (3-8)) and two new records of Zethinae (Figures 4 (9-10)) for the State of Paraná, representing 44% of the species recorded in this study.
Richness and abundance of eumenine and zethine wasps (Vespidae) in the three protected areas sampled: Parque Nacional da Ilha Grande (PNIG); Parque Nacional do Iguaçú (PNI); Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista (RBBV).
Eumeninae species recently recorded for the State of Paraná: 3. Minixi brasilianum (female), 4. Montezumia ignobiloides (female), 5. Montezumia petiolata (male), 6. Omicron opifex (female), 7. Omicron spegazzinii (female), 8. Omicron tegulare (female). Scale bars = 1 mm.
Zethinae species recently recorded for the State of Paraná: 9. Zethus cylindricus (female), 10. Zethus romandinus (male). Scale bars = 1 mm.
In the Parque Nacional da Ilha Grande the species Zethus romandinus (de Saussure, 1852) (Figure 4 (10)) was recorded for the first time in Paraná. This species was previously recorded for the Atlantic Forest and other biomes in the Brazilian States of Amazonas, Pará, Ceará, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul (Hermes and Somavilla, 2024).
In the Parque Nacional do Iguaçu, three new records for the State were observed, with special interest for Montezumia ignobiloides (Willink, 1982) (Figure 3 (4)), which was previously recorded only for the State of Ceará (Hermes and Somavilla, 2024).
This species was also recorded for Paraguay (Garcete-Barrett, 2002), reinforcing the idea that it may have a wider distribution than the current published records. Also, Minixi brasilianum (de Saussure, 1875) (Figure 3 (3)), previously recorded for the States of Amazonas, Pará and Mato Grosso; and Montezumia petiolata (de Saussure, 1855) (Figure 3 (5)), registered for the States of Pará, Roraima, Bahia, Ceará, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were also newly recorded for Paraná (Hermes and Somavilla, 2024).
In the Refúgio Biológico Bela Vista, the occurrence of M. brasilianum and M. petiolata was also reported, with four newly recorded species for the State: Omicron opifex (Brèthes, 1909) (Figure 3 (6)), previously known from the States of Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina; Omicron spegazzinii (Brèthes, 1905) (Figure 3 (7)), previously found in the States of Mato Grosso, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina; Omicron tegulare (Fox, 1899) (Figure 3 (8)), previously found in the States of Mato Grosso, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais; and Zethus cylindricus (Fox, 1899) (Figure 4 (9)), previously known to occur in Bahia, Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina (Barbosa et al., 2022; Hermes and Somavilla, 2024).
Brazil is a vast country and with an extreme rich biodiversity, it is no surprise, therefore, that collecting gaps would be commonplace for several taxa in the subfamilies treated herein. This is also enhanced by the fact that only two researchers specialized in the systematics of solitary vespids are formally employed in the country, one of which was only recently hired. The lack of information about these groups of organisms in the State of Paraná (Oliveira and Gonçalves, 2017) is just another case of traditionally neglected taxa, for which new collecting efforts in under sampled areas commonly reveal the occurrence of many more species than previously known. The case of Vespidae in Paraná is even more outstanding, because even for a group traditionally studied in Brazil, the social paper wasps (Polistinae), a recent study also found new species records for the State (Gouvêa et al., 2023).
Our knowledge on the distribution of solitary and primitively social vespids in Brazil remains scarce – including the present contribution, only ten studies have focused on the survey of these wasps (Barbosa et al., 2022), with four being carried out in the Atlantic Forest (Hermes and Kohler, 2004; Somavilla and Kohler, 2012; Oliveira and Gonçalves, 2017). This scenario is worrying regarding the State of Paraná, which has only 11,8% of its original Atlantic Forest and, nonetheless, lost around 633 ha between 2022 and 2023 (Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, 2024) due to deforestation.
4. Conclusion
The large number of newly recorded species of Eumeninae and Zethinae in Pas of Paraná highlights the importance of these areas as a tool to preserve these groups. It also highlights the urgent need for more studies on the geographic distribution of these wasps, due their under sampling in the Neotropics and the accelerated loss of the original coverage of the important Atlantic Forest biome.
Acknowledgements
We thank the Núcleo de Inteligência Territorial (NIT) of Itaipu Parquetec and Itaipu Binacional for financial support to this study through agreement 4500049462, and for receiving the researchers, logistical support in RBBV; To SISBio for granting license 76084-3; Thank to the IFSULDEMINAS, campus Inconfidentes-MG and IFPR, campus Umuarama-PR; To the interns for their help in the field. Marcel G. Hermes is a CNPq fellow (306882/2021-3).
Data Availability Statement
The entire data set that supports the results of this study was published in the article itself.
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Editor:
Takako Matsumura Tundisi
