Influência das mudanças climáticas na distribuição de vespas sociais Polistinae (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) no Brasil

Abstract

Social wasps in Brazil are represented by the subfamily Polistinae, with more than 300 species, distributed in 22 genera. These species act as important predators of other insects and their populations are sensitive to environmental disturbances. Therefore, given the accelerated global warming that affects the distribution of species, ecological models are being used to predict future impacts. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the influence of future climate change on the occurrence of social wasp species in Brazil. Our results showed that independent founding and swarm founding wasps will initially be positively affected, with an increase in ecological niche areas, but that in the long term these areas may not be of high suitability. Since these species occupy higher trophic levels as predators and generalists, these habits can contribute to an increase in the range of occurrence of the species and, therefore, studies that directly assess behavioral, physiology, colonial productivity and communication changes among species are needed.