Long distance foraging and recruitment by a stingless bee, Melipona mandacaia

Body size is hypothesized to play a major role in animal foraging, particularly in pollinators. In general, species with larger bodies forage over greater distances. Studies have found support for this body size-foraging range hypothesis across a wide variety of pollinator species, but have not investigated the possibility that this effect also applies within a pollinator species. We trained foragers of the stingless bee Melipona mandacaia to feeders in their native habitat under natural conditions, and found that larger foragers forage at and recruit to significantly greater distances than smaller foragers. The maximum foraging and recruitment distances are significantly greater (by 24% and 48% respectively) for larger as compared to smaller foragers. We also provide the first direct evidence that stingless bees can forage in their native habitat at distances up to 2.1 km and recruit over 1 km from their nest, recruiting more than 230% farther than previously reported for any stingless bee feeder experiments. Natural size variation among colonies within the same species may play a role in foraging range, and could thus influence plant gene flow and population structure

Long distance foraging and recruitment by a stingless bee, Melipona mandacaia

Body size is hypothesized to play a major role in animal foraging, particularly in pollinators. In general, species with larger bodies forage over greater distances. Studies have found support for this body size-foraging range hypothesis across a wide variety of pollinator species, but have not investigated the possibility that this effect also applies within a pollinator species. We trained foragers of the stingless bee Melipona mandacaia to feeders in their native habitat under natural conditions, and found that larger foragers forage at and recruit to significantly greater distances than smaller foragers. The maximum foraging and recruitment distances are significantly greater (by 24% and 48% respectively) for larger as compared to smaller foragers. We also provide the first direct evidence that stingless bees can forage in their native habitat at distances up to 2.1 km and recruit over 1 km from their nest, recruiting more than 230% farther than previously reported for any stingless bee feeder experiments. Natural size variation among colonies within the same species may play a role in foraging range, and could thus influence plant gene flow and population structure

Orchid bees (Apidae, Euglossini) from Oil Palm Plantations in Eastern Amazon Have Larger but Not Asymmetrical Wings

Phenotypic variation in both morphology and symmetry of individuals may appear due to environmental stress caused by land-use changes. Here, we evaluated fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and wing size variations of two orchid bee species, Euglossa ignita Smith, 1874 and Eulaema meriana (Olivier, 1789), comparing 11 wing traits. We sampled the individuals from legal reserves (LR), areas of permanent protection (APP), and oil palm plantations (PALM) in Eastern Amazonia. We calculated FA as the absolute difference between the wing measurements made in the right and left wings of specimens and both species’ wing size. We corrected each FA measure for possible directional asymmetry bias by subtracting the mean value of the mean FA signed difference to each FA measure. We compared FA and the size of each wing trait of each species between land-use types using one-way ANOVAs. We found no effect of FA between land-use types, but we observed individuals of both species from PALM areas having larger wings than those from LR areas. Our results demonstrate that there seems to be a pressure exerted by land-use change associated with palm oil cultivation favoring individuals with larger wings, although both species had shown substantial permeability of oil palm