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Martins AC, Proença CEB, Vasconcelos TNC, Aguiar AJC, Farinasso HC, de Lima ATF, Faria JEQ, Norrana K, Costa MBR, Carvalho MM, Dias RL, Bustamante MMC, Carvalho FA, Keller A. Contrasting patterns of foraging behavior in neotropical stingless bees using pollen and honey metabarcoding. Sci Rep 2023; 13:14474. [PMID: 37660141 PMCID: PMC10475120 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-41304-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2023] [Accepted: 08/24/2023] [Indexed: 09/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Stingless bees are major flower visitors in the tropics, but their foraging preferences and behavior are still poorly understood. Studying stingless bee interactions with angiosperms is methodologically challenging due to the high tropical plant diversity and inaccessibility of upper canopy flowers in forested habitats. Pollen DNA metabarcoding offers an opportunity of assessing floral visitation efficiently and was applied here to understand stingless bee floral resources spectra and foraging behavior. We analyzed pollen and honey from nests of three distantly related stingless bee species, with different body size and social behavior: Melipona rufiventris, Scaptotrigona postica and Tetragonisca angustula. Simultaneously, we evaluate the local floristic components through seventeen rapid botanical surveys conducted at different distances from the nests. We discovered a broad set of explored floral sources, with 46.3 plant species per bee species in honey samples and 53.67 in pollen samples. Plant families Myrtaceae, Asteraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Melastomataceae and Malpighiaceae dominated the records, indicating stingless bee preferences for abundant resources that flowers of these families provide in the region. Results also reinforce the preference of stingless bees for forest trees, even if only available at long distances. Our high-resolution results encourage future bee-plant studies using pollen and honey metabarcoding in hyper-diverse tropical environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aline C Martins
- Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil.
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
| | - Carolyn E B Proença
- Departamento de Botânica, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
| | - Thais N C Vasconcelos
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
| | - Antonio J C Aguiar
- Laboratório de Abelhas, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
| | - Hannah C Farinasso
- Laboratório de Abelhas, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
| | - Aluisio T F de Lima
- Departamento de Botânica, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
| | - Jair E Q Faria
- Departamento de Botânica, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
| | - Krissya Norrana
- Laboratório de Abelhas, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
| | - Marcella B R Costa
- Departamento de Genética, Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, 31270-901, Brazil
| | - Matheus M Carvalho
- Laboratório de Abelhas, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil
- Laboratório de Biologia Comparada e Abelhas, Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP, 14040-901, Brazil
| | - Rodrigo L Dias
- Departamento de Genética, Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, 31270-901, Brazil
| | | | - Fernanda A Carvalho
- Departamento de Genética, Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, 31270-901, Brazil
| | - Alexander Keller
- Cellular and Organismic Networks, Faculty of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians University, 82152, Munich, Germany
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