Prediction of social structure and genetic relatedness in colonies of the facultative polygynous stingless bee Melipona bicolor (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

• Main Authors: Evelyze Pinheiro dos Reis, Lucio Antonio de Oliveira Campos, Mara Garcia Tavares
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Genética 2011-01-01
• Series: Genetics and Molecular Biology
• Subjects: Melipona; microsatellites; polygyny; queen number; social structure
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1415-47572011000200028

Stingless bee colonies typically consist of one single-mated mother queen and her worker offspring. The stingless bee Melipona bicolor (Hymenoptera: Apidae) shows facultative polygyny, which makes this species particularly suitable for testing theoretical expectations concerning social behavior. In this study, we investigated the social structure and genetic relatedness among workers from eight natural and six manipulated colonies of M. bicolor over a period of one year. The populations of M. bicolor contained monogynous and polygynous colonies. The estimated genetic relatedness among workers from monogynous and polygynous colonies was 0.75 ± 0.12 and 0.53 ± 0.16 (mean ± SEM), respectively. Although the parental genotypes had significant effects on genetic relatedness in monogynous and polygynous colonies, polygyny markedly decreased the relatedness among nestmate workers. Our findings also demonstrate that polygyny in M. bicolor may arise from the adoption of related or unrelated queens.