DIPLOMADO EN MELIPONICULTURA EN LINEA SESIÓN 2021

 

May-Itzá, W de J., Peña, W.L., De la Rúa, P., Quezada-Euán J.J.G. (2019).  A genetic and morphological survey to trace the origin of Melipona beecheii (Apidae: Meliponini) from Cuba. Apidologie  50, pages859–870  https://doi.org/10.1007/s13592-019-00696-7

Abstract

The stingless bee Melipona beecheii is extensively distributed across Mexico and Central America and the only Melipona found in the Greater Antilles. The aim of this work was to establish possible continental affinities of M. beecheii from the Antilles. We compared populations from the main island (Cuba) with two clearly separated genetic lineages of M. beecheii on mainland, namely the Yucatán peninsula (Mexico) and Costa Rica. We used morphometrics, the degree of cephalic maculation, and microsatellite variation. Results indicate a greater morphological and genetic similarity between populations from Cuba and the Yucatán peninsula with respect to those of Costa Rica. Based on our findings, we conclude that the origin of M. beecheii from Cuba is more likely the Yucatán peninsula (Mexico). We found evidence that isolation has not been large enough to result in a new genetic lineage.

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Dr Ricardo Oliveira- Universidad de Leuven
Investigación sobre el parasitismo reproductivo de las reinas y el efecto de componentes del alimento larval en la determinación de castas en Melipona beecheii

Rozen Jerome G. Jr., Quezada-Euán J. Javier G., Roubik David W., Smith Corey S. (2019) Immature stages of selected Meliponine bees (Apoidea: Apidae). American Museum Novitates Num 3924, April 8 2019, 26 pp.

Abstract
This paper describes the eggs and last larval instars of certain species of bees belonging to the tribe Meliponini, one of the four related tribes that comprise the corbiculate bees in the subfamily Apinae. The four taxa analyzed include some whose immature stages have previously been described. Our purpose is to identify what is known about the anatomy of immature stages and suggest what needs to be studied to better understand the developmental anatomy of eggs and mature larvae in this group of highly eusocial bees

PDF del artículo

 

Quezada- Euán J.J.G., Sanabria-Urbán S., Smith C.,Cueva del Castillo R. (2019). Patterns of sexual size dimorphism in stingless bees: Testing Rensch’s rule and potential causes in highly eusocial bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Meliponini). Ecology and Evolution 9 (5): 2688-2698.

 Abstract

Eusocial insects offer a unique opportunity to analyze the evolution of body size differences between sexes in relation to social environment. The workers, being sterile females, are not subject to selection for reproductive function providing a natural control for parsing the effects of selection on reproductive function (i.e., sexual and fecundity selection) from other kinds of natural selection. Patterns of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) and testing of Rensch's rule controlling for phylogenetic effects were analyzed in the Meliponini or stingless bees. Theory predicts that queens may exhibit higher selection for fecundity in eusocial taxa, but contrary to this, we found mixed patterns of SSD in Meliponini. Non‐Melipona species generally have a female‐biased SSD, while all analyzed species of Melipona showed a male‐biased SSD, indicating that the direction and magnitude of the selective pressures do not operate in the same way for all members of this taxon. The phylogenetic regressions revealed that the rate of divergence has not differed between the two castes of females and the males, that is, stingless bees do not seem to follow Rensch's rule (a slope >1), adding this highly eusocial taxon to the various solitary insect taxa not conforming with it. Noteworthy, when Melipona was removed from the analysis, the phylogenetic regressions for the thorax width of males on queens had a slope significantly smaller than 1, suggesting that the evolutionary divergence has been larger in queens than males, and could be explained by stronger selection on female fecundity only in non‐Melipona species. Our results in the stingless bees question the classical explanation of female‐biased SSD via fecundity and provide a first evidence of a more complex determination of SSD in highly eusocial species. We suggest that in highly eusocial taxa, additional selection mechanisms, possibly related to individual and colonial interests, could influence the evolution of environmentally determined traits such as body size.

https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4935

Acceso a PDF Ecology & Evolution

Valor cultural de las abejas sin aguijón en América Tropical

Quezada-Euán JJG; Nates-Parra G; Maués MM; Imperatriz-Fonseca VL; Roubik DW (2018) The economic and cultural values of stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Meliponini) among ethnic groups of tropical America. Sociobiology 65: 534-557.

 Abstract- Stingless honey bees — commonly known as stingless bees — have long provided food and materials to the inhabitants of tropical America. We conducted a literature search to codify available information, including non-peer reviewed ‘grey literature’, on the purported value of stingless bees to indigenous people. Among > 400 species of Neotropical stingless bees several are widely used in beekeeping. Varied cultural and economic values are associated with their use, and in some cases husbandry, as a consequence of ongoing contact between people and these social insects. Adapting new species to husbandry is being attempted in many countries. The bees remain culturally important, and beliefs associated with them are significant for different groups, beyond utilization as commodities. We find values in food, craft, religion and medicine, with cultural values ranging from utilitarian to mythological. Values transmitted across generations allow cohesion and communal identity of native organisms associated with any indigenous society. Such cultural values seem in danger of extinction, primarily due to external factors. We provide examples of successful regional strategies in averting cultural and economic loss in natural human heritage, in this case bees that provide honey and other benefits. Preserving stingless bees and the cultural heritage around them provides a good example of sustainable use of native species in human communities. Bees are important agents for conservation of the environment.

 

Abejas sin aguijón de México

Abejas sin aguijón de México: Biología, manejo y conservación de una herencia ancestral (2018)- Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán 420 págs.

Solicitudes accediendo a las páginas WEB de la Librería UADY (link), 
Gandhi (link), Librería de la U (link), tanto en México como en Colombia; Librería El Ermitaño, en México; Boutique del libro en Argentina; Casa del Libro en España, Buscalibre, entre otras.

Stingless bees of Mexico

Springer Nature EBook Link

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It is already available in Ebook

Caro A, Moo-Valle H, Alfaro R, Quezada-Euán JJG (2017) Pollination services of Africanized honey bees and native Melipona beecheii to buzz-pollinated annatto (Bixa orellana L.) in the neotropics. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 19: 274-280.

Servicios de polinización por abejas africanizadas y la abeja nativa Melipona beecheii a buzz-pollinated achiote (Bixa orellana L.)  en el neotrópico 

SUMMARY

1. Africanized honey bees (AHBs) are the predominant flower visitors of many plants in the neotropics, although little evidence is available on their efficiency as pollinators on native crops, in particular those requiring especialized pollination services such as flower sonication.
2. Annatto (Bixa orellana) is a buzz-pollinated neotropical tree. We compared the pollination service provided by AHBs and native Melipona beecheii (Mb) to annatto in the Yucatan. We investigated if the different ability of both species to sonicate would have an impact on the production of this crop.
3. AHBs were notably more abundant on flowers (73.8%) compared with Mb (21.3%). However, AHBs deposited significantly less pollen on the stigma and produced less fruits, with fewer seeds and weight, than Mb. A higher pollination index efficiency was obtained for Mb (0.9) compared with AHBs (0.6).
4. AHBs did not sonicate annatto flowers and gleaned the pollen released after Mb visits, which suggests that they act as commensals of the latter.
5. By acting as commensals, AHBs, despite their high abundance, appear to marginally contribute to the pollination of annatto. Studies conducted under scenarios with a differential abundance of AHBs and efficient sonicating species are necessary to test this hypothesis on annatto and other buzz-pollinated plants in the neotropics.

                                             PDF Agric. Forest Entom.

Medina RG, Fairbairn DJ, Bustillos A, Moo-Valle H, Medina S, Quezada-Euán J J G (2016) Variable patterns of intraspecific sexual size dimorphism and allometry in three species of eusocial corbiculate bees. Insectes Sociaux 63: 493-500

 

Abstract

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD), in which one sex is larger than the other, has remained understudied in social insects, particularly bees. Using weight and linear structural measurements, we quantified the magnitude of SSD and its variation across nests in three species of corbiculate bees, two belonging to the highly eusocial Apini (Apis mellifera) and Meliponini (Melipona beecheii), and one to the primitively eusocial Euglossini (Euglossa viridissima). We asked if similar to most insects, including Hymenoptera, SSD is female-biased in these eusocial species. Contrary to expectations, we found that SSD was moderately male-biased in the two highly eusocial species and slightly male-biased for weight and not significant for linear size in E. viridissima. The possible roles of queen protogyny and reduced brood provisioning by queens in shaping these patterns of SSD are discussed. The allometry of SSD among nests differed among species as well, ranging from hypoallometry in A. mellifera, to isometry in M. beecheii, to hyperallometry in E. viridissima. This variation indicates that the phenotypic response of body size to differing conditions across nests differs both between sexes and among species. The variation detected among the three studied species in both SSD and allometry for SSD precludes any broad generalizations to other corbiculate bees. However, it does suggest that corbiculate bees can provide a new and diverse framework to analyze the effects of social environment on the evolution of animal sexual dimorphism.

 

 PDF Insectes Sociaux

Macias Macias J O; Quezada-Euán J J G (2015) Stingless bees in a temperate climate: oviposition behavior and duration of ontogenic development stages in Melipona colimana (Hymenoptera: Meliponini). J. Apicultural Res. 54: 255-259

Abstract

Melipona colimana is a stingless bee endemic to temperate areas of the Trans-Mexican volcanic belt, where intranest behavior during the provisioning and oviposition process, duration of ontogenic development stages and time of emergence of individuals were determined. It was observed that the dynamics of provisioning and oviposition do not differ substantially from tropical species of the same genus, but ontogenic development in a temperate climate was longer than in a tropical climate, possibly due to lower temperatures in the original habitat of the species. Duration of ontogenic

development of M. colimana individuals is the longest recorded so far among the species of Melipona genus. Worker bees took 55.44 ± 1.09 days to emerge from the cells; males, 57.14 ± 0.94 and gynes, 52.62 ± 0.63, with statistical differences between them (F = 367.72, DF = 2, 395, p < .05). The gynes emerged before workers, and workers before the males. The obtained data can be used to promote the sustainable use of this species in mountains in Mexico.

PDF Journal Apicultural Research

Medina L.M., Hart A.G., Ratnieks F.L.W. 2009. Hygienic behavior in the stingless bees Melipona beecheii and Scaptotrigona pectoralis. Genetics and Molecular Research 8: 571-576.