A molecular phylogeny of the stingless bee genus Melipona (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Utility of the ITS1 Region for Phylogenetic Analysis in Stingless Bees: a Case Study of the Endangered Melipona yucatanica Camargo, Moure and Roubik (Hymenoptera: Meliponini).

“…together with other species as M. quadrifasciata and M. mandacaia. This molecular result confirms previous morphological studies (Moure et al, 2007) and it is in accordance with recent molecular studies of the genus Melipona (Ramírez et al 2010). In the light of recent numt DNA descriptions in other Melipona subspecies (Cristiano et al, 2012;Ruiz et al, 2013), the ITS1 region has demonstrated its potential as an appropriate marker for genetic studies in stingless bees.…”

Similar but not the same: insights into the evolutionary history of paralogous sex-determining genes of the dwarf honey bee Apis florea

“…Recent phylogenetic analyses of molecular and morphological data place the open-nesting dwarf honey bee, A. florea, as the most basal clade in the phylogeny of the genus Apis (Lo et al, 2010). The estimated divergence time of this species from the rest of the genus Apis ranges from 29 to 33 million years, establishing A. florea as an ideal Apis species to gain broader insight into the evolutionary history and the early stage of the paralogous genes fem and csd (Ramirez et al, 2010).…”

Risk of local extinction and genetic diversity of Melipona quadrifasciata (Apidae: Meliponini) in a possible Northeastern limit of its distribution in Brazil

“…An analysis of identity for this group of bees was performed using geometric morphometrics and compared with the standard specimens of M. quadrifasciata quadrifasciata and M. quadrifasciata anthidioides. Also was utilized standared specimen of M. mandacaia (Smith 1863) which is the sister species of M. quadrifasciata (Ramírez et al, 2010) as negative control. The result of canonical variate analysis (CVA) clearly defined the group in which the population under study belongs.…”