Stingless bee floral visitation in the global tropics and subtropics

Abstract

Bees play a key role in maintaining healthy terrestrial ecosystems by pollinating plants. Stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) are a diverse clade of social bees (>500 species) with a pantropical distribution spanning South and Central America, Africa, India, and Austral[ndash]Asia. They are garnering increasing attention as commercially[ndash]beneficial pollinators of some crops, yet their contribution to the pollination of native plants in the tropics and subtropics remains poorly understood. Here we conduct for the first time a global review of the plants visited by stingless bees. We compile a database of reported associations (flower visits) between stingless bees and plants, from studies that have made either direct observations of foraging bees or analysed the pollen stored in nests. Worldwide, we find stingless bees have been reported to visit the flowers of plants from at least 215 different families and 1434 genera, with frequently reported interactions for many of the tropic[prime]s most species[ndash]diverse plant families including Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Rubiaceae, Poaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Myrtaceae, Malvaceae, Arecaceae, Solanaceae, and Anacardiaceae. The stingless bee fauna of each of three major biogeographic regions (Neotropical, Afrotropical and Indo[ndash]Malayan[ndash]Australasian) were frequent visitors of many of the same plant families, however we detected differences in the proportional use of plant families by the stingless bees of the Indo[ndash]Malayan[ndash]Australasian and Neotropical regions, likely reflecting differences in the available flora of those regions. Stingless bees in all regions visit a range of exotic species in their preferred plant families (crops, ornamental plants and weeds), in addition to native plants. Although most reports of floral visitation on wild plants do not confirm effective pollen transfer, it is likely that stingless bees make at least some contribution to pollination for the majority of plants they visit. In all, our database supports the view that stingless bees play an important role in the ecosystems of the global tropics and subtropics as pollinators of an exceptionally large and diverse number of plants. This database also highlights important gaps in our knowledge of stingless bee resource use and should benefit future efforts to understand stingless bee[ndash]plant interactions.

Biologia da polinização de espécie arbórea de Cupania: dicogamia sincronizada, fenótipo generalista e predominância de abelhas sem ferrão

“…Assim, a floração massiva acarretaria em alta visitação e a dicogamia sincronizada favoreceria o fluxo de pólen entre indivíduos de C. oblongifolia. Em suma, nossos resultados se somam a outros estudos que indicam que Meliponini constitui importante grupo de polinizadores de espécies arbóreas na região Neotropical (Roubik, 1989;Pires & Freitas, 2008;Moreira & Freitas, 2020;Bueno et al, 2021).…”

Honey compositional convergence and the parallel domestication of social bees

“…While current research is mainly focusing on the identi cation of chemical markers speci c to a oral origin or on the establishment of standards in the case of stingless bee honey 34,52,53 , investigations into stingless bee ecology should be encouraged throughout Africa and Asia, where their ecology and patterns of evolution are more poorly understood. There is a major gap between our knowledge of honey bees and stingless bees, especially in Asia and Africa 5,34,54 . Disentangling the roles of shared evolutionary history and environmental conditions on honey properties is also still hindered by the fact that phylogenetic relationships among stingless bees still remain unresolved for most genera 55,56 .…”

Flower choice by the stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria is not influenced by colour-similarity to a higher-reward flower in the same patch

“…Stingless bees (tribe Meliponini) are the other major clade of social bees, yet their foraging behaviour and floral choices are comparatively understudied. Stingless bees are abundant and important pollinators in tropical ecosystems across the globe, visiting upwards of 215 plant families (Bueno et al 2021). They are also pollinators of a variety of tropical crops and are increasingly used as managed pollinators in agro-ecosystems (Grüter 2020).…”