Genetic analysis of wild drone congregations of the stingless bee Scaptotrigona mexicana (Hymenoptera: Apidae) reveals a high number of colonies in a natural protected area in Southern Mexico

Sánchez, Daniel; Vandame, Rémy; Kraus, Frank Bernhard

doi:10.22201/ib.20078706e.2018.1.2105

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Despite evidence for the high probability of mating between wild and managed individuals in stingless bees, no study has demonstrated experimentally that new alleles actually enter the genetic pool of managed colonies via the mating of managed queens with wild male stingless bees. We therefore sought to test this hypothesis and chose S. mexicana as our biological model, because it is commonly used in meliponaries, has been extensively investigated (Guzmán Díaz et al, 2004;Sánchez et al, 2016;Sánchez-Guillén et al, 2018), is relatively common as wild colonies in the study area (Ayala, 1999), and has a cultural and economic role in local communities. Moreover, since some stingless bee species once thought to be singly mated, are now known to be multiply mated, we also investigated the mating frequency in S. mexicana.…”

Section: Polyandry and Gene Flow In A Stingless Beementioning

confidence: 99%

Gene Flow from Wild to Managed Colonies in the Stingless Bee Scaptotrigona Mexicana and an Update on its Mating Frequency

Solórzano-Gordillo

Nieh

Cruz‐López

et al. 2021

Journal of Apicultural Science

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Researchers have hypothesized that wild stingless bee colonies are a repository of genes for managed populations via the mating of managed virgin queens with males from wild colonies. We tested this hypothesis with the stingless bee, Scaptotrigona mexicana, a culturally important species in the study region. Each of ten colonies were split into two colonies and placed in a meliponary, which resulted in ten queen-right mother colonies and ten queenless daughter colonies. We allowed daughter colonies to produce gynes, which then naturally mated with males of unknown origins. Six months later, five third-instar larvae from each colony were genotyped at six microsatellite loci. Four new alleles (12% of 33 alleles) were found in daughter colonies that were not present in any other mother colony. The Fst index showed no overall significant differences between mother and daughter colonies, indicating that they belonged to the same population despite the new alleles. Interestingly, nine queens were estimated to be polyandrous, with an average mating frequency of 1.3, unlike previous reports for this species. These results have implications for the fitness of managed stingless bee colonies and suggest that a better understanding of how gene flow is affected by human management practices would be beneficial.

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Section: Polyandry and Gene Flow In A Stingless Beementioning

confidence: 99%