1. Recent studies have demonstrated that the richness of pollinators in crop systems can improve productivity due to the effect of functional trait differences between species. These findings reinforce the potential effectiveness of integrated management of both Apis and non‐Apis bees to ensure global crop yields. 2. Thus, we used meta‐analysis techniques to synthesise published literature on crop pollination and verify whether Apis and non‐Apis bees perform equivalent contributions to worldwide crop production considering the differences in both functional traits of these bees and pollination requirements of the crops. We expected that pollination by both Apis and non‐Apis bees would contribute to enhancing all crop production measures (fruit/seed weight, fruit/seed yield, no. fruit/seed, and pollination/fertilisation) independently of levels of pollination dependency. 3. The final database used in the meta‐analysis included 33 published studies, reporting 72 independent pollination experiments of A. mellifera and non‐Apis bees on crop production, including fruits, vegetables, spices, and oil crops. As expected, our results demonstrated that crop production was greater with bee pollination regardless of being provided by Apis or non‐Apis species. We also observed a stronger positive effect on flower pollination/fertilisation and production of crops with essential/great dependency on pollination. 4. The overall analysis of the contribution of Apis and non‐Apis bees to crop production indicated that both groups are essential for the maintenance of agricultural production.

1. The tropical stingless bees have evolved intricate communication systems to recruit nestmates to food locations. Some species are able to accurately communicate the location of food, whereas others simply announce the presence of food in the environment.2. Plebeia droryana is a tiny Neotropical stingless bee that, until recently, was thought to use a solitary foraging strategy, that is without the use of a recruitment communication system. However, recent research has indicated that P. droryana might be able to recruit nestmates to specific food source locations.3. We tested this by studying whether foragers can guide nestmates in the direction and the distance of artificial feeders placed in the vicinity of the colony. We trained bees to a scented sucrose solution feeder at 10 m and placed different feeders either in different directions (experiment 1) or in different distances (experiment 2). We found that P. droryana directs newcomers in the right direction, but distance information does not seem to be communicated.4. Moreover, we then tested whether newcomers use chemical and visual cues originating from nestmates foraging at the food source, but found no evidence for the use of these social cues provided by conspecifics.5. The potential mechanism that P. droryana may use to orient recruits toward the food source, however, remains unknown and requires further study.

Spermatozoa vary in quantity, quality and design across species and individuals. Here, we reported the first detailed analysis of sperm traits in two primitively eusocial paper wasps, Polistes dominula and Polistes gallicus, which differ in their nuptial strategies and body size as follows: lek-territoriality of the large P. dominula males, defending exclusive territories at landmarks; scramble competition of the small P. gallicus, where serial mating may occur because males interfere with rivals and replace them during copulation. We compared the number, viability, and length of sperm, and its coefficient of variation, between these sympatric paper wasps patrolling and marking the same landmarks during the same summer: a good opportunity to analyse sperm across species while controlling for environmental variables. Spermatozoa were more numerous and longer in P. dominula than in P. gallicus males. Viability was similar in both species and positively covaried with male body size. Intra-male variation in sperm length was significantly reduced in P. gallicus, as predicted in the case of selection for an optimal sperm design. We hypothesized that precopulatory sexual selection (lek-territoriality vs. scramble competition) may affect sperm traits.