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Nestmate recognition in the Amazonian stingless bee Melipona paraensis

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Abstract

Meliponine bees use chemical-based nestmate discrimination to protect their colonies from unrelated intruders. However, species from the Amazon basin are relatively poorly known from this perspective. Here, we investigated Melipona paraensis nestmate discrimination in different contexts (nests vs. neutral arenas), testing aggression in bees facing other bees varying in age and origin (same/different colony or a different kleptoparasitic meliponine species) or experimentally treated with odors from unrelated colonies. As expected, M. paraensis did not discriminate against callow non-nestmate workers with weak/undifferentiated chemical signatures. Workers specialized in nest defense aggressed intruders more often than non-specialized workers, but were less aggressive in neutral arenas than in the nest. Our study provides novel behavioral information relevant for social insect research and meliponiculture.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Richardson Frazão, the quilombola community in Mazagão Velho, and Elson Passos for lending us the bee colonies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Do Estado Do Amapá, Macapá, AP, Brazil

    Paulo Pacheco Junior

  2. Independent scholar, Pescara, Italy

    Serafino Teseo

  3. LEEEIS, Departamento de Psicologia Experimental, Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Nicolas Châline & Henrique Lanhoso

  4. Programa de Pós-Graduação Em Psicologia Experimental, IP-USP, São Paulo, Brazil

    Nicolas Châline

  5. Núcleo ÍTACA, Departamento de Psicologia, Instituto de Ciências Humanas E Sociais, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil

    Arley da Costa

Authors
  1. Paulo Pacheco Junior
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  2. Serafino Teseo
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  3. Nicolas Châline
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  4. Henrique Lanhoso
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  5. Arley da Costa
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Contributions

Experiments: PPJ, HL. Data analysis: PPJ, ST, NC. Manuscript writing: PPJ, ST, NC, HL, AdC. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Paulo Pacheco Junior or Serafino Teseo.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Communicated by: Matthias Waltert

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Pacheco Junior, P., Teseo, S., Châline, N. et al. Nestmate recognition in the Amazonian stingless bee Melipona paraensis. Sci Nat 109, 26 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-022-01796-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-022-01796-8

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