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Wing morphometrics indicates the existence of two distinct phenotypic clusters within population of Tetragonula iridipennis (Apidae: Meliponini) from India

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Abstract

Description of biodiversity is often cited as one of the most important actions necessary for conservation programs. There are more than 600 species of stingless bees spread over the Tropical regions of the world; though for various species, little is known about their biology and taxonomy. We sampled bees from feral colonies from various regions of India and compared them using wing morphology. The results of population analysis of the patterns of wing venation, using geometric morphometric techniques, suggested the existence of at least two phenotypic clusters within our samples of the so-called Tetragonula iridipennis complex. These findings were supported by other features, including differences in nest architecture. This helps to explain the patterns of variability found in stingless bees in India and also will be valuable for conservation planning.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, for funding this study. Acknowledgements are also due to Dr. M. Muthuraman, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Dr. A.J. Solomon Raju, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Dr. K.V. Lazar, Calicut University, Calicut, Dr. S. Devanesan, Kerala Agricultural University, Thiruvananthapuram, Dr. SushamaChapalkar, VidyaPratishtan’s School of Biotechnology, Baramati and Dr. A. Rahman, Assam Agricutural University, Jorhat, for making the material available for the study. The authors are grateful to FAPESP (Proc. 2011/07857-9 to TMF and Proc. 2013/20358-7 to VB) and NAP BioComp (University of São Paulo) for financial support and to Thibaut De Meulemeester and an anonymous reviewer for suggestions. Dr. David de Jong helped us to improve the English of our manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    T. M. Francoy

  2. Departamento de Genética, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

    V. Bonatti

  3. Department of Entomology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, 580005, Karnataka, India

    S. Viraktamath & B. R. Rajankar

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  1. T. M. Francoy
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Correspondence to T. M. Francoy.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Figure 1: Map indicating the sampling sites of Tetragonula iridipennis. (JPEG 151 kb)

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Supplementary Figure 2: Scatterplot of the two first axis of the canonical discriminant analysis of the Indian populations of Tetragonula iridipennis. (JPEG 134 kb)

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Supplementary Figure 3: Nest structure of Tetragonula iridipennis bees sampled in Kerala state, with the brood cells constructed as a cluster. (JPEG 494 kb)

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Supplementary Figure 4: Nest structure of Tetragonula iridipennis bees sampled in Assam state, with the brood cells constructed as layers. (JPEG 371 kb)

Supplementary material 5 (DOCX 44 kb)

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Francoy, T.M., Bonatti, V., Viraktamath, S. et al. Wing morphometrics indicates the existence of two distinct phenotypic clusters within population of Tetragonula iridipennis (Apidae: Meliponini) from India. Insect. Soc. 63, 109–115 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-015-0442-2

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