科学家说，蜜蜂促进了巴西的森林修复。

[圣保罗]一些最重要的树种用于恢复和保护热带森林，严重依赖于蜜蜂作为花粉的转运蛋白。

蜜蜂促进了大距离的授粉，增加植物的遗传多样性，并刺激降解生态系统中本地物种的繁殖和韧性。

这就是为什么在巴西科学家发表的一项研究中，保护这些昆虫的减少应该是森林修复项目的优先事项。生态应用。

“Restoration programmes have the power to bring back bee populations, just as bees may stimulate the reproduction and resilience of native species in degraded ecosystems,”

Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues, College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo

该研究分析了不同的蜜蜂物种如何应对巴西森林景观的变化。它调查了蜜蜂种群在修复项目中种植树木时如何增加花粉的散布，并帮助重新建立巴西受干扰地区的各种森林。

Researchers carried out fieldwork in an agricultural area of the Atlantic Forest in the country’s south-east, which had been turned into sugarcane fields. Only about seven per cent of the original vegetation remains there, in small fragments of primary forest comprised of discontinuous canopies covered by vines and bordered by invasive grasses.

该团队还包括另外两个较少退化的区域作为参考生态系统。其中一个包含大约二十年前的研究人员重新引入的高度多样的树木，以增加森林覆盖，而另一个由湿地组成，由湿地组成，以草本植被为主。

在这些景观中的每一个中，研究人员安装了“泛陷阱”（一种捕获蜜蜂的标准方法），目的是在2015年10月至2017年1月之间在开花季节的顶峰收集昆虫样品。

They compared the abundance and diversity of bee populations in each habitat and analysed the pollen grains stuck to their bodies to determine which plant species the insects had interacted with.

该团队收集了727只蜜蜂，分别具有不同的尺寸和飞行技巧，社交行为，筑巢地点和饮食，发现这些蜜蜂与220种不同的植物物种相互作用。

The abundance of bees responded negatively to habitat change, decreasing in highly disturbed environments — such as anthropogenic wetlands and sugarcane fields. But their number increased in areas where forest had been restored, as well as in original forest fragments, where large and medium-sized species that nest above-ground were predominant.

Small and medium-sized bee species that nest underground, with varying levels of social behaviour and diet, were unaffected by habitat change, and even tended to increase in some disturbed areas, researchers said.

同时，“寡凝性蜜蜂”（通常更喜欢开花植物属的花粉）对栖息地的变化产生负面反应。

Ricardo Ribeiro Rodrigues is a biologist at the Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture at the University of São Paulo, who specialises in forest recovery and co-authored the study. He said the results suggested that “restoration programmes have the power to bring back bee populations, just as bees may stimulate the reproduction and resilience of native species in degraded ecosystems”.

他补充说：“这是一个积极反馈的系统。”他解释说：“因此，在当地灭绝物种的情况下，应通过重新引入筑巢材料在恢复计划中优先考虑。”。

Vera Lúcia Imperatriz-Fonseca, a biologist at the University of São Paulo’s Biosciences Institute, said: “Brazil is rich in species of pollinators such as bees, but we urgently need a more solid public policy that guarantees their conservation, as countries like the United States, United Kingdom, France and Norway are doing. Taking care of pollinators is a sure return for biodiversity.”

With bees disappearing in many regions of the world, the causes and consequences of this loss are already being analysed to find solutions, said Imperatriz-Fonseca.

她补充说：“研究中提出的结果可能有助于指导公共政策行动，以恢复包括蜜蜂在其战略中的森林地区。”

This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Latin America & Caribbean desk.

The学习published in Ecological Applications was supported by FAPESP, a donor of SciDev.Net.