Orchid bees as bioindicators of the state of conservation of a forest

Abstract

Bioindicators are organisms that determine the environmental impact of an ecosystem and euglossine are used for responding to environmental changes, they are easy to observe, and their taxonomy is well known. The study's objective was to evaluate a forest's environmental quality through orchid bees as bioindicators. In this investigation, collections were made at the undergrowth level by means of "Bottle Traps" and manual pools by zigzag method, in which entomological networks were used; the bees will be attracted by chemical attractants such as eucalyptus oil, the essence of eugenol and vanilla essence. We obtained a relatively high abundance with capture of 1024 individuals, and a richness of 38 species, the genus that dominated the study was the genus Euglossa with 89.5%, followed by the genus Eulaema with 9.6% and the genus Eufriesea with just 0.8 %, for the genus Exaerete that it is not possible to capture individuals, The completeness curve for the general sampling carried out allows us to observe representativeness of 99%. In conclusion, despite anthropic actions, the environmental quality in Cerro Llorón is quite stable because we found a very high abundance and species richness.