First record of the stingless bee Lestrimelitta rufa (Friese) (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini) in NE Brazil and its cleptobiotic behavior

Authors

  • Valdenio Mendes Mascena Universidade Federal do Ceará
  • David Silva Nogueira Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia
  • Celso Moreira Silva Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Ceará, Campus Crato
  • Breno Magalhães Freitas Universidade Federal do Ceará

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v64i3.1262

Keywords:

Robber bee, Melipona quinquefasciata, ethology, inquiline bee

Abstract

The aim of this study was to expand occurrence records of Lestrimelitta rufa (Friese, 1903) to the Brazilian Northeast and to document the cleptobiotic behavior of this robber species in colonies of Melipona quinquefasciata Lepeletier, 1836. Two attacks were carried out in a meliponary in the county of Barbalha (Ceará, Brazil), where pot and larval food were sacked. Even with direct confrontation between invading and inquiline bees, there was a total loss of one of the attacked nests because robber workers remained insistently in search of resources of these nests during the attacks.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Andrade-Lima, D. (1982). Present day forest refuges in Northeastern Brazil. In G.T. Prance (Ed.), Biological Diversification in the Tropics (pp. 245-254). New York: University Press, Columbia.

Bego, R.L., Zucchi, R., Mateus, S. (1991). Notas sobre a estratégia alimentar (cleptobiose) de Lestrimelitta limao Smith (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponinae). Naturalia, 16: 119-127.

Blum, M.S., Crewe, R.M., Kerr, W.E., Keith, L.E., Garrison, A.W. & Walker, M.M. (1970). Citral in stingless bees: isolation and functions in trail-laying and robbing. Journal of Insect Physiology, 16: 1637-1648.

Camargo, J.M.F. & Pedro, S.R.M. (2013). Meliponini Lepeletier, 1836. In J.S. Moure, D. Urban & G.A.R. Melo (Orgs). Catalogue of Bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) in the Neotropical Region - online version. <http://www.moure.cria.org.br/catalogue> (accessed date: 11 September, 2016).

CPMR. (2011). Companhia de Pesquisa de Recursos Minerais. Atlas geológicos do Brasil. Levantamento da geodiversidade projeto atlas pluviométrico do Brasil isoietas anuais médias período 1977 a 2006. Ministério de Minas e energia. Brasília, <http://www.cprm.gov.br/publique/Hidrologia/Mapas-e-Publicacoes/Atlas-Pluviometrico-do-Brasil-1351.html> (accessed date: 21 November, 2016).

Grüter, C., Menezes, C., Imperatriz-Fonseca, V.L. & Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2012). A morphologically specialized soldier caste improves colony defense in a neotropical eusocial bee. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 109: 1182-1186.

Marchi, P. & Melo, G.A.R. (2006). Revisão taxonômica das espécies brasileiras do gênero Lestrimelitta Friese (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponina). Revista Brasileira de Entomologia, 50: 6-30.

Michener, C.D. (1974). The Social Behavior of the Bees. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 404 p.

Michener, C.D. (2007).The Bees of the World. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2nd Ed, 953 p.

Moro, M.F., Macedo, M.B., Moura-Fé, M.M., Castro, A.S. & Costa, F.R.C. (2015). Vegetação, unidades fitoecológicas e diversidade paisagística do estado do Ceará. Rodriguésia, 66: 717-743.

Moure, S.J. (1951). Notas sôbre Meliponinae (Hymenopt. - Apoidea). Dusenia, 2: 25-70.

Pompeu, M.S. & Silveira, F.A. (2005). Reaction of Melipona rufiventris Lepeletier to citral and against an attack by the cleptobiotic bee Lestrimelitta limao (Smith) (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponina). Brazilian Journal of Biology, 65: 189-191.

Rech, A.R., Schwade, M.A. & Schwade, M.R.M. (2013). Abelhas-sem-ferrão amazônicas defendem meliponários contra saques de outras abelhas. Acta Amazonica, 43: 389-394.

Roubik, D.W. (1989). Ecology and natural history of tropical bees. New York, Cambridge University Press. 514 p.

Sakagami, S.F. & Laroca, S. (1963). Additional observations on the habits of the cleptobiotic stingless bees, the Genus Lestrimelitta Friese (Hymenoptera, Apoidea). Journal of the Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Series VI, Zoology, 15: 319-339.

Sakagami, S.F., Roubik, D.W. & Zucchi, R. (1993), Ethology of the robber stingless bee, Lestrimelitta limao (Hymenoptera, Apidae). Sociobiology, 21: 237-277.

Santana, W.C., Freitas, G.S., Akatsu, I.P. & Espencer, A.S.E. (2004). Abelha Iratim (Lestrimelitta limao Smith: Apidae, Meliponinae), realmente é danosa às populações de abelhas? Necessita ser eliminada? Mensagem Doce, 78.

Schwarz, H.F. (1948). Stingless bees (Meliponidae) of the Western Hemisphere. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 90: 1-546.

Silveira, F.A., Melo, G.A.R. & Almeida, E.A.B. (2002). Abelhas Brasileiras: Sistemática e Identificação. 1ª Edição. Belo Horizonte. 253 pp.

Van Zweden, J.S., Gruter, C., Jones, S.M. & Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2011). Hovering guards of the stingless bee Tetragonisca angustula increase colony defensive perimeter as shown by intra- and inter-specific comparisons. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 65: 1277-1282.

Downloads

Published

2017-10-17

How to Cite

Mascena, V. M., Nogueira, D. S., Silva, C. M., & Freitas, B. M. (2017). First record of the stingless bee Lestrimelitta rufa (Friese) (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini) in NE Brazil and its cleptobiotic behavior. Sociobiology, 64(3), 359–362. https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v64i3.1262

Issue

Vol. 64 No. 3 (2017)

Section

Short Note

License

Sociobiology is a diamond open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

 

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

 

    1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Most read articles by the same author(s)