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Sex determination in bees. XXXIII. Decrease of xo heteroalleles in a finite population of Melipona scutellaris (Apidae, Meliponini)

Gislene Almeida Carvalho; Warwick Estevam Kerr; Vania Alves Nascimento

Laboratório de Genética, Departamento de Biociências, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, 38400-902 Uberlândia, MG, Brasil. Send correspondence to G.A.C.

ABSTRACT

The descendants of a sample of 22 colonies of Melipona scutellaris (Meliponini, Apidae) from the forest of Lençois, Bahia (Brazil), and kept in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, where they do not naturally occur, were monitored yearly for the number of xo alleles remaining in this finite population. Altogether, 32 daughter colonies were artificially produced: 15 colonies in 1991 and 17 colonies in 1992. Five of these colonies produced diploid drones. The estimated number of xo alleles for 1991 is 15 and for 1992 it is 7.5. Usually, wild populations of Hymenoptera have around 20 xo alleles. Therefore, there was a decline in the number of xo sex-alleles resulting from the reduction in the size of the population. Recommendations to avoid the loss of sex alleles in bee populations are: maintain meliponaries with more than 44 hives, maintain larger contiguous areas of forest, teach honey hunters to transfer the colonies to wooden boxes, instead of destroying them, and exchange queens with other beekeepers.

Keywords: sex; bees; heteroalleles; Melipona scutellaris.

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