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Flowers as sleeping places for male bees: somehow the males know which flowers their females prefer

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Abstract

Males of solitary bees usually spend the night out of the nests. In the middle or late afternoon, they stop the patrolling behavior and move on to their sleeping places. Usually, they hang with the mandibles on small branches of the vegetation or stay inside flowers until the next day. We report the sleeping places of males of four Tapinotaspidini species on flowers of six plant species of four families. Flowers of three Iridaceae species were the most sought by males, especially flowers of Sisyrinchium scariosum which show high synchrony between anthesis and activity period of Lanthanomelissa discrepans males. Moreover, S. scariosum flowers are the most visited by females of L. discrepans which are the main pollinators; however, the role of the males as pollinators is unclear. Similar situation is evident for the interaction between males of Arhysoceble picta and Cuphea glutinosa (Lythraceae), where the males take nectar and may act as pollinators, like their females. We believe the plants are indirectly benefited by these interactions through the maintenance of the male populations of the pollinator bee species.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Antonio Aguiar for bee identification; Lilian Eggers for Sisyrinchium identification; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico-CNPq for funds (process no. 471145/2008–4), posdoctoral grants to MP (process no. 151464/2007-3), Grant to MS (process no. 303084/2011-1) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo-FAPESP for Grant to IAS (JP 04/00274- 4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul, Rua Major Antonio Cardoso 590, Cerro Largo, RS, 97900-00, Brazil

    Mardiore Pinheiro

  2. Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, 05508-900, Brazil

    Isabel Alves-dos-Santos

  3. Departamento de Biologia Vegetal, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Caixa Postal 6109, Campinas, SP, 13083-970, Brazil

    Marlies Sazima

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  1. Mardiore Pinheiro
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  2. Isabel Alves-dos-Santos
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Correspondence to Isabel Alves-dos-Santos.

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Pinheiro, M., Alves-dos-Santos, I. & Sazima, M. Flowers as sleeping places for male bees: somehow the males know which flowers their females prefer. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 11, 329–337 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-017-9532-6

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