Banca de DEFESA: RAFAELA LORENA DA SILVA SANTOS

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : RAFAELA LORENA DA SILVA SANTOS
DATE: 06/12/2022
TIME: 09:00
LOCAL: Skype
TITLE:

Effect of Landscape Heterogeneity on Bee Populations and Communities

KEY WORDS:

Landscape structure, Agent-based models, Bee, Population, Community, Resources, Foraging

PAGES: 249
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Ecologia
SUMMARY:

There is wide evidence of the worldwide decline in pollinating bee populations as a consequence of landscape homogenization due to intensive land use by large-scale agriculture. Empirical studies have shown that the bee community is positively affected by increasing landscape heterogeneity. This effect indicates that individuals are moving in search of complementary or alternative resources present in different elements that make up the landscape. However, there are no studies that have investigated the effect of landscape heterogeneity at different hierarchical levels taking into account different bee profiles and their movement patterns in real landscapes composed of agricultural areas interspersed with naturally heterogeneous native environments. Empirically addressing this relationship can be difficult with field studies, so in this thesis agent-based models were used to model a possible cause and effect mechanism by which landscape heterogeneity influences bee populations and communities with different characteristics, taking into account their movement patterns. In the first chapter, a model was created to simulate the foraging behavior of different bee profiles and the energy balance of individuals in structurally distinct agro-natural landscapes. This modeling allowed to create an index reflecting the quality of the landscape from the point of view of these bees, enabling comparisons with indices traditionally used to describe landscape structure. In chapter 2, a model was created that used the landscape quality index (created in chapter 1) as input to simulate population dynamics through the survivability, abundance, reproduction, and dispersal of different bee profiles to understand how the structure of agricultural landscapes can affect the diversity of these organisms over time. In addition, for both models the predictive capacity of the models was explored for the richness and abundance of bees sampled in the field in the Mucugê-Ibicoara Agropolo of the Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, Brazil. With these models it was possible to show that the landscape quality index generated can help predict the abundance and species richness of bees. Although there is a considerable correlation between the generated index and the landscape metric of proportion of native environments, it seems that this generated landscape quality index explains a different portion of the variation and therefore can be included as a complementary descriptor of the landscape. Also, landscape structure was found to be an important aspect that interfered with population dynamics and structure of the simulated communities, where bees with highly specialized profiles regarding nesting environment preference were penalized in more heterogeneous landscapes. Finally, the models created allowed for the evaluation of mechanistic explanations for causal relationships between landscape patterns and bee community structure.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - ***.945.658-** - DANILO BOSCOLO - USP
Externa ao Programa - 2440081 - FLORA SOUZA BACELAR - UFBAExterno à Instituição - LUCIANO ELSINOR LOPES - UFSCAR
Externa à Instituição - BIANCA CAITANO BRITO DA SILVA - UESC-BA
Externa à Instituição - PAULA CAROLINA MONTAGNANA - UNESP