species richness; habitat; honey bee; Stingless bee; Gabon
Abstract :
[en] Bees are among the most e ective pollinators. These insects include honeybee and stin-
gless bee. In Africa, habitat loss is the main threat to these insects. This loss of habitat
is largely due to various human activities. An evaluation of the richness of social bees in
three locaties in Gabon (Central Africa) was conducted from October 2013 to March 2014:
Kougouleu who underwent deforestation and implantation of food crops, forest area Mas-
sengalini in bu er zone of protected area of Lope and Lekokodiba in logging concession of
Preccious Woods Gabon. For this, a collection was conducted using yellow traps lled with
a mixture of water and honey and using a hand vacuum in 20 sites in each area. The number
of species was compared to that estimated there are about thirty years. Eleven species of
social bees (Apis mellifera adansonii and ten stingless bee species) were collected, of which
5 to Kougouleu, 8 to Massengalini and 11 to L ekokodiba. Honeybee has been collected in
all localities. Forest localities are distinguished from Kougouleu by higher species diversity.
This di erence is highly signi cant (Kruskal-Wallis 2 = 45.362, df = 2 and p-value<0.001).
A decrease of approximately 50% of the number of stingless bee species in 30 years was found
to Kougouleu, while the number of social bee species varies little in forest localities. Our
study shows that the loss of forest habitat causes a decline in the species richness of social
bees and stingless bees are more sensitive to this loss as the honeybee.