Summary.
Aspects of the sociobiology of the native Australian stingless bee Trigona carbonaria (Hymenoptera, Meliponini) were investigated using highly variable microsatellite markers. The queen mating frequency was estimated by examining genotypes of samples of workers from five colonies across three to five microsatellite loci. In each case, results were consistent with the workers being progeny of a queen mated with a single male. Microsatellite analysis of haploid males from two of the colonies suggested they predominantly arose from queen-laid eggs. As workers are more related to sons-of-workers than to sons-of-queens in monandrous colonies, this is somewhat surprising, and suggests that there may be colony-level costs associated with worker reproduction, or that queens are able to regulate worker reproduction via the ritualized cell provisioning and oviposition process. Males from another T. carbonaria colony were found to be diploid.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Received 9 April 2001; revised 27 December 2001; accepted 26 February 2002.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Green, C., Oldroyd, B. Queen mating frequency and maternity of males in the stingless bee Trigona carbonaria Smith. Insectes soc. 49, 196–202 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-002-8301-3
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-002-8301-3