Nest Structure, Seasonality And Female Behavior Of Epicharis (Anepicharis) Dejeanii Lepeletier (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Centridini) In A Restinga Ecosystem, In Southern Brazil

We investigated the nesting behavior of females of Epicharis dejeanii and the architecture of their nests, in a large aggregation in a Restinga area, on Ilha do Superagui, southern Brazil. Surveys were carried out intermittently through the warm-wet seasons from different years between 2013 and 2017. The nest aggregation occupied an area of approximately 2,000 m(2) and was situated on a sand bank and on flat sandy soil. Each nest consisted of a long unbranched tunnel, averaging 1.45 +/- 0.35 m (N = 8), connected to a single brood cell with a mean length of 3.13 +/- 0.2 cm (N = 13) and mean diameter of 1.2 +/- 0.1 cm (N = 11). On average, females carried out 4.0 +/- 2.4 foraging trips per day (N = 109) to collect floral resources for provisioning brood cells. Similar times were spent by females in their foraging trips for: only pollen (15.8 +/- 14.3 min, N = 72), oil (22.5 +/- 15.7 min, N = 45), or both resources (17.0 +/- 15.1, N = 63). Our findings reveal that some variation in both nesting architecture and female behavior of E. dejeanii during nesting activities can occur in different locations from the same region.