Genetic diversity of two stingless bees, Trigona nigerrima (Cresson 1878) and Trigona corvina (Cockerell 1913), in coffee dominated landscapes in southern Mexico

Abstract

Stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini) are key pollinators in natural and agricultural Pantropical environments. Current human activities, however, threaten their populations, making it urgent to assesstheir abundance and genetic status. By a population genetics approach, we calculated the genetic diversity and estimated the number of wild colonies of two stingless bee species, Trigona nigerrima (Cresson) and T. corvina (Cockerell) in southern Mexico. Allele richness ranged from 10 to 19 (mean ± SD = 14 ± 3.5) for both species. Expected heterozygosity ranged 0.88-0.93 for T. corvina and 0.82-0.92 for T. nigerrima. The estimated number of colonies estimated was 25 on average for T. corvina and 21 for T. nigerrima. According to our results populations of both species seem not to be in danger. We also show that genetic tools can be extremely useful for colony density estimation for stingless bees as it is for bumble bees and honey bees.

Population structuring of the ubiquitous stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula in southern Brazil as revealed by microsatellite and mitochondrial markers

“…This result shows that the ecological features of each location are not influencing molecular diversity. Similar results were observed in the stingless bees Trigona nigerrima , T. corvina and T. spinipes (Solórzano‐Gordillo et al ., ; Jaffé et al ., ). In our study, variables such as size of the sampled area and median elevation were not significantly correlated with genetic diversity for either mtDNA or microsatellites.…”

“…Other physical barriers, such as rivers or mountain ranges, or the presence or absence of forest appear to be unrelated to population structuring in T. angustula . Stingless bee populations seem to diverge even when there are no apparent obstacles to gene flow, as observed in Melipona yucatanica (May‐Itzá et al ., ), Scaptotrigona hellwegeri (Quezada‐Euán et al ., ), Trigona nigerrima and Trigona corvina (Solórzano‐Gordillo et al ., ) in Mexico, Tetragonula hockingsi in Australia (Brito et al ., ), and Trigona spinipes in Brazil (Jaffé et al ., ). Factors that shape population structure include low dispersal, different ecological conditions (selection) and isolation by distance (genetic drift) (Beebee & Rowe, ), which can act alone or in combination.…”

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

“…DNA was extracted following the HotSHOT method (Truett et al, 2000). All specimens were genotyped at 5 microsatellite loci: marker B124 developed for Bombus terrestris (Estoup et al, 1993), markers T3-32 and T4-171 for S. postica (Paxton et al, 1999) and Tc3-302, and Tc-487 for Trigona carbonaria (Green et al, 2001) following single locus routine PCR protocols (Kraus et al, 2008;Solórzano-Gordillo et al, 2015) to a final reaction volume of 5µL. Microsatellite fragments were separated using a semi-automated LI-COR 4200 slab-gel sequencer (6% denaturing polyacrylamide gels); fragment size was determined using the software SAGA MX (LI-COR Inc., US).…”

“…Na not be as detrimental as previously thought. However, a detailed landscape analysis is necessary before making any further conjecture (Solórzano-Gordillo et al, 2015). We could show that landscapes around meliponaries can harbor wild S. mexicana populations with carrying capacities similar to those of nature reserves, and that meliponaries themselves represent a potential refuge for stingless bees.…”

¿Qué sabemos de las abejas sin aguijón (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Meliponini) en México?: Diversidad, Ecología y polinización

“…A los trabajos de distribución de especies de meliponinos se pueden sumar los pocos trabajos sobre genética de poblaciones en nuestro país (Quezada-Euán et al, 2007;2012;May-Itzá et al, 2012;Hurtado-Burillo et al, 2013;2017;Solórzano-Gordillo et al, 2015;Hurtado-Burillo, 2018). Estos trabajos resultan importantes pues nos ayudan a conocer el estado de la diversidad genética de estas abejas, lo cual nos da una idea de la salud de las poblaciones, y sobre los procesos, pasados y presentes, que afectan dicha diversidad.…”