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Abstract <p>Bees play an important role as pollinators, and evidence of global bee population declines has become increasingly common. While most studies of plant-pollinator networks focus on contemporary ecosystems, historical interaction datasets remain rare, particularly in tropical regions. Here, we revisited a historical dataset of plant-bee interactions collected between 1971 and 1975 in a cerrado area from southeastern Brazil that was later converted by land-use change. Using this dataset, we described the structure of a historical plant-bee interaction network and examined how bee functional traits, such as body size, social organization, and floral resource use, were associated with species’ topological roles within the network. The network revealed: (i) a core of highly connected bee species, primarily natives; (ii) peripheral bees associated with distinct floral resources; (iii) a highly heterogeneous and compartmentalized organization of interactions; (iv) high interaction specificity; and (v) a weak relationship between bee functional traits and network topological roles. Together, these findings provide a rare descriptive record of a historical cerrado bee-flower visitation network and preserve ecological information from a plant-bee interaction system that can no longer be directly resampled.</p> Implications for insect conservation <p>Historical interaction datasets such as this provide valuable ecological baselines for future comparative studies and can directly support conservation planning, ecological restoration, and biodiversity monitoring. Historical interaction networks help identify key pollinator and plant species that historically contributed to ecosystem organization, provide reference conditions against which restoration success can be evaluated, and contribute to the development of interaction-based indicators of ecosystem functioning. As historical datasets accumulate, they may also become important components of long-term ecological databases supporting conservation policies and restoration planning in highly threatened ecosystems such as the Brazilian Cerrado.</p>

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Revisiting a historical plant-bee network from a Brazilian cerrado: insights from a 50-year-old dataset on bee diversity, functional roles, and network structure

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月4日

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  • Leandro Hachuy-Filho,
  • Caio S. Ballarin,
  • Gerhard Gottsberger,
  • Ilse Silberbauer-Gottsberger,
  • Eduardo A. B. Almeida,
  • Felipe W. Amorim

摘要

Abstract

Bees play an important role as pollinators, and evidence of global bee population declines has become increasingly common. While most studies of plant-pollinator networks focus on contemporary ecosystems, historical interaction datasets remain rare, particularly in tropical regions. Here, we revisited a historical dataset of plant-bee interactions collected between 1971 and 1975 in a cerrado area from southeastern Brazil that was later converted by land-use change. Using this dataset, we described the structure of a historical plant-bee interaction network and examined how bee functional traits, such as body size, social organization, and floral resource use, were associated with species’ topological roles within the network. The network revealed: (i) a core of highly connected bee species, primarily natives; (ii) peripheral bees associated with distinct floral resources; (iii) a highly heterogeneous and compartmentalized organization of interactions; (iv) high interaction specificity; and (v) a weak relationship between bee functional traits and network topological roles. Together, these findings provide a rare descriptive record of a historical cerrado bee-flower visitation network and preserve ecological information from a plant-bee interaction system that can no longer be directly resampled.

Implications for insect conservation

Historical interaction datasets such as this provide valuable ecological baselines for future comparative studies and can directly support conservation planning, ecological restoration, and biodiversity monitoring. Historical interaction networks help identify key pollinator and plant species that historically contributed to ecosystem organization, provide reference conditions against which restoration success can be evaluated, and contribute to the development of interaction-based indicators of ecosystem functioning. As historical datasets accumulate, they may also become important components of long-term ecological databases supporting conservation policies and restoration planning in highly threatened ecosystems such as the Brazilian Cerrado.