Does the thermal heterogeneity of urban spaces drive intraspecific variation in the activity pattern of native stingless bees?

• Grant number: 25/00650-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Raul Costa Pereira
• Grantee: Raquel Bendocchi Alves
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 20/11953-2 - Echoes of socioeconomic inequality into biodiversity (IneqBio), AP.JP

Abstract

Spatial and temporal variations in temperature influence how and when organisms carry out their activities. Thermal heterogeneity promotes the existence of microenvironments, periods of the day or even months of the year with more favourable temperatures than others. In particular, urban ecosystems are highly heterogeneous in thermal terms, which creates challenges and opportunities for city-dwelling organisms. This project aims to understand how the nesting activity of the native bee Plebeia droryana (Friese, 1900) responds to spatial and temporal temperature heterogeneity. To this end, we will quantify the flight activity of 10 Mirim-bee nests located in buildings (e.g. concrete walls) from dawn to dusk over two years. We will use a high-precision thermal camera to measure the temperature throughout the day of the substrates where the nests were built, as well as a new method based on systematic timelapse camera recordings to quantify the number of bees entering and leaving the nest per minute. We will analyse the data with nested generalised linear mixed models. The results will provide unprecedented information on the thermal and behavioural ecology of native bees in neotropical urban ecosystems, which has important implications for how to maintain these organisms, as well as their ecosystem services, in neotropical metropolises in the face of the accelerating pace of climate change.