New molecular evidence for fragmentation between two distant populations of the threatened stingless bee Melipona subnitida Ducke (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini)

Abstract

For a snapshot assessment of the genetic diversity present within Melipona subnitida, an endemic stingless bee distributed in the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil, populations separated by over 1,000 km distance were analyzed by ISSR genotyping. This is a prerequisite for the establishment of efficient management and conservation practices. From 21 ISSR primers tested, only nine revealed consistent and polymorphic bands (loci). PCR reactions resulted in 165 loci, of which 92 were polymorphic (57.5%). Both Φ ST (ARLEQUIN) and θ B (HICKORY) presented high values of similar magnitude (0.34, p<0.0001 and 0.33, p<0.0001, respectively), showing that these two groups were highly structured. The dendrogram obtained by the cluster analysis and the scatter-plot of the PCoA corroborate with the data presented by the AMOVA and θ B tests. Clear evidence of subdivision among sampling sites was also observed by the Bayesian grouping model analysis (STRUCTURE) of the ISSR data. It is clear from this study that conservation strategies should take into account the heterogeneity of these two separate populations, and address actions towards their sustainability by integrating our findings with ecological tools.

Landscape genomics to the rescue of a tropical bee threatened by habitat loss and climate change

“…Logit transformations were used to normalize/linearize heterozygosities. The table shows X 2 values and p-values from likelihood ratio tests applied on best-fitting models.adaptation to temperature, precipitation, and forest cover and found latitudinal and altitudinal patterns in the spatial distribution of adaptive genetic variation.Although previous genetic studies found intraspecific variation and signals of population structure in M. subnitida(Bonatti, Simões, Franco, & Francoy, 2014;Cruz et al, 2006;Silva et al, 2014), we…”

“…Although previous genetic studies found intraspecific variation and signals of population structure in M. subnitida (Bonatti, Simões, Franco, & Francoy, ; Cruz et al, ; Silva et al, ), we here present the first assessment of spatial genetic structure based on thousands of independent genetic markers and performed across the full distribution range of this species. Our results reveal four genetic clusters, confirmed by two complementary methods, and extensive admixture (Figure ).…”

Pollen Analysis of Food Pots Stored by Melipona subnitida Ducke (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in a Restinga area

“…M. subnitida, locally known as jandaíra, occurs in Brazil only in the northeast region and is very frequent in the Caatinga biome (Martins, 2002). In Maranhão state, this species occurs in a restinga area of the Lençóis Maranhenses Nacional Park (Rego & Albuquerque, 2006) and in the Parnaíba Delta (Silva et al, 2014). M. subnitida is of great importance for the pollination of the regional native flora (Ferraz et al, 2008) and cultivated plants (Cruz et al, 2004;Silva et al, 2005) and is traditionally reared for honey production, which has a high economic value.…”