Vespas sociais (Hymenoptera: vespidae: polistinae) do estado do Tocantins: primeira abordagem

Abstract

The Tocantins state is part of Northern of Brazil, there are Cerrado and Amazon biomes, an area harboring high biodiversity and high degree of endemism. Nevertheless, there are no studies on diversity of social wasps, common insects of Neotropical fauna, which perform a great variety of ecosystemic services. This study presents a list of social wasps (Vespidae: Polistinae) collected actively with entomological net and using Malaise, Light, and attractive trap in sixteen localities in Tocantins state. A total of 1.013 social wasps were sampled in all 16 areas, distributed in 57 species of 13 genera. Fifty of these species are new distribution records to Tocantins state, some species are not common found in the collections and lists of species, and one, Protopolybia picteti is recorded for the first time to Brazil. This increase of 714% may be an indication that the Polistinae richness is probably higher in the regions studied and that Tocantins may well contain a number of additional (as yet unrecorded) social wasp species. More comprehensive studies are needed in order to increase the knowledge of wasp species in Tocantins, contributing to increased knowledge of the diversity in Northern Brazil.