Honeydew feeding in adult Noctuidae and Erebidae – some observations and a note on differing modes of access

Sansum, Philip

doi:10.5962/p.332190

Cited by 1 publication

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“…The production and release of honeydew or wax by sap-sucking insects are intrinsic physiological requirements as well as protective products, respectively, for these hemipterans. Consequently, opportunistic insects exploit the honeydew as an alternative food source and exploit the wax as a supplementary nest material (Way 1963;Maschwitz and Hanel 1985;Letouneau and Choe 1987;Corke 1999;Delabie 2001;Camargo and Pedro 2002;Naskrecki and Nishida 2007;Kondo 2010;Sansum 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking beyond the flowers: associations of stingless bees with sap-sucking insects

Santos

Halinski

Santos

et al. 2019

Sci Nat

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The main sources of food for stingless bees are the nectar and pollen harvested from flowers, whereas one important kind of nesting material (i.e. wax) is produced by their own abdominal glands. Stingless bees can, nonetheless, obtain alternative resources of food and wax from exudates released by sap-sucking insects as honeydew and waxy cover, respectively. To date, there are no comprehensive studies investigating how diversified and structured the network interactions between stingless bees and sap-sucking insects are. Here, we conducted a survey of the data on relationship between stingless bees and sap-sucking insects to evaluate: (1) which resources are collected by which stingless bee species; (2) how diverse the interaction network is, using species degree and specialisation index as a proxy; and if (3) there would be any phylogenetic signal in the species degree and specialisation indices. Our findings demonstrate that approximately 21 stingless bee species like Trigona spp. and Oxytrigona spp. have been observed interacting with 11 sap-sucking species, among which Aethalion reticulatum is the main partner. From ca. 50 records, Brazil is the country with most observations (n = 38) of this type of ecological interaction. We found also that stingless bees harvest fivefold more honeydew than waxy covers on sap-sucking insects. However, we did not find any phylogenetic signal for the occurrence of this interaction, considering species degree and specialisation indices, suggesting that both traits apparently evolved independently among stingless bee species. We suggest that specific ecological demands may drive this opportunistic behaviour exhibited by stingless bees, because major sources of food are obtained from flowers and these bees produce their own wax.

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