Número de alelos XO em uma população de Melipona quadrifasciata anthidioides Lepeletier (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponinae)

• Autor(a) principal: Aidar,Davi S.
• Data de Publicação: 2001
• Outros Autores: Kerr,Warwick E.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Zoologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0101-81752001000400018
• topic: Melipona quadrifasciata anthidioides; colonies; population and alleles

The number of xo alleles of a population of stingless bees can be estimated by observing the male proportion of the first brood comb produced by a new queen (about 40 Fl bees) and the total number of colonies. A proportion of 50% diploid males indicates insemination of the queen by a single male with some xo sex allele: 25% diploid male would indicate insemination by two males (one with some xo as the queen and another with different one). Diploidy was confirmed by cytology of the testis. The original population (78 colonies) of Ribeirão Preto, State S. Paulo, Brazil, had 8 xo sex alleles. From this population, 10 colonies were orphaned and taken to the Serra do Mar (Sea Mountains) at Espirito Santo State (1200 km far) in order that the virgin queen of each colony would cross with males of this region. Ten days after the nine hives (one was lost) were brought back to Ribeirão Preto. No one of them produced diploid males. New samples took from all the Meliponary revealed that the number of xo sex alleles to have increased to 17,3. Than, this methodology can be used to increase the genetic variability of the stingless bees populations.