Effects of pollination by Melipona quadrifasciata (Hymenoptera: Apidae) on tomatoes in protected culture

Abstract

To evaluate the pollination efficiency of a stingless bee, Melipona quadrifasciata, individuals originating from tropical and subtropical regions of South America were examined on tomatoes (cv. Momotaro 8) cultivated in a greenhouse in summer and autumn. We compared differences in the rates of foraged flowers, pollen weights foraged from anthers, rates of fruit set of tomatoes, seed number of tomato fruits and yields of tomato fruit weight between M. quadrifasciata and the bumblebee, Bombus terrestris. When the amount of tomato pollen was sufficient, there were no differences in pollination efficiency between the stingless bee and the bumblebee; however, the rates of foraged flowers, the rate of fruit set and the yields were significantly reduced in the stingless bee compared with the bumblebee when fertile tomato pollen decreased markedly during the hottest period of the summer. During this period, the rate of flowers foraged by bumblebees did not decrease, but the rates of fruit set, the seed number and the yields of tomato fruits decreased significantly in comparison with the other periods. It is known that tomato pollen production is inhibited at high temperatures; thus, we consider that the high temperatures in the greenhouse (average daily temperature higher than 28°C) caused the extreme decrease in pollen production. These results indicate that M. quadrifasciata can be used as a suitable pollinator of tomatoes if sufficient amounts of fertile pollen are provided.

Buzz-Pollinated Crops: A Global Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Supplemental Bee Pollination in Tomato

“…Environmental factors, including temperature may also affect the capacity of bees to deliver pollination services. For instance, the buzz-pollinating stingless bee, Melipona quadrifasciata Le Peletier (Hymenoptera: Apidae), is thought to be an efficient tomato pollinator only when temperatures do not go above 28°C ( Hikawa and Miyanaga 2009 ). An additional factor that could explain the varying effects of a single pollination treatment on tomato fruit weight that we observed is variation in visitation rates.…”

“…Commercially reared native bees produced on a mass scale with low genetic diversity could still increase the spread of bee pathogens, as well as influence genetic diversity of their wild counterpart if/when they interact with native bees during foraging or mating ( Hikawa and Miyanaga 2009 ). To circumvent these problems, Hikawa and Miyanaga (2009) suggest a radical new strategy: importing Melipona stingless bees from the neotropics for tomato pollination in Japan. Melipona bees are found throughout the warm areas of the Neotropics and colonies have been cultivated by humans for over 3,000 yr in Mesoamerica ( Quezada-Euán 2018 ).…”

“…Melipona bees are found throughout the warm areas of the Neotropics and colonies have been cultivated by humans for over 3,000 yr in Mesoamerica ( Quezada-Euán 2018 ). Hikawa and Miyanaga (2009) suggest that using Melipona bees in tomato greenhouses in Japan would not pose a risk of species invasion, as Melipona thermoregulatory ability means they cannot overwinter in temperate zones. They subsequently tested the pollination efficiency of M. quadrifasciatus in comparison to B. terrestris , finding that overall tomato fruit yield and quality was comparable between both species, apart from at low floral pollen levels where B. terrestris pollinated flowers produced a significantly greater yield and quality of tomatoes ( Hikawa and Miyanaga 2009 ).…”

Foraging and Drifting Patterns of a Highly Eusocial Neotropical Stingless Bee Species Assessed by Radio-frequency Identification Tags

“…Stingless bees present great potential to be used in commercial crop pollination 7,44,45 . Indeed, Melipona bees have been demonstrated to be efficient pollinators of many economically important fruits and vegetables including tomatoes [46][47][48][49] , eggplant 9 , sweet pepper 50 and annatto 51 . A recent study using the RFID technology with the stingless bee M. fasciculata showed that workers of this species can forage up to a distance of 10 km away from their hives 52 , suggesting that these bees are well suited for pollination of large scale plantations as well.…”

Pollination Services Provided by Melipona quadrifasciata Lepeletier (Hymenoptera: Meliponini) in Greenhouses with Solanum lycopersicum L. (Solanaceae)

“…For this reason, the number of studies involving the management of pollinators in greenhouses has grown steadily in recent years. Among tomato pollinators in greenhouses are Amegilla chlorocyanea (Cockerell) (Hogendoorn et al, 2006), bees of the genus Xylocopa (Lestis) Lepeletier & Serville (Hogendoorn et al, 2000) and Bombus Latreille (Morandin et al, 2001), and the stingless bees N. perilampoides (Cauich et al, 2004;Palma et al, 2008) and M. quadrifasciata (Del Sarto et al, 2005;Bispo dos Santos et al, 2009;Hikawa & Miyanaga, 2009). Stingless bees are particularly promising for use as commercial pollinators (Cruz & Campos, 2009), given that they do not present a functional sting, are easy to handle (usually low aggressive-nonstinging), have populous and perennial nests, present a marked worker recruitment behavior and stock a large amount of food (Heard, 1999).…”