Variabilidade genética de Melipona quadrifasciata (Hymenoptera: Apidae, Meliponina) no Estado de Minas Gerais Brasil

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Rejane Bezerra da
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/2382
• topic: Melipona; Variabilidade genética; Hymenoptera; Microssatélite; Melipona; Genetic variability; Hymenoptera; Microsatellite; CNPQ::CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::BIOLOGIA GERAL

The stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata Lep. (mandaçaia) is distributed along the Brazilian coast, from Paraiba to Rio Grande do Sul. This species presents an important role in the pollination of the Brazilian native trees. However, many stingless bee species are being drastically reduced due to deforestation. Thus, in order to verify how deforestation affects the genetic variability of M. quadrisfasciata, 22 colonies collected in several fragments of Minas Gerais state were analyzed with twelve microsatellite loci. Results demonstrated a low genetic variability (P=16,67%) in the analyzed colonies. Only two, out of the twelve loci analyzed were polymorphic. The mean observed heterozygosity was of 0,046. It was not possible to verify a relationship between the size of the fragments sampled and the genetic variability (number of detected alleles) of different colonies. The mean genetic distance among the colonies was of 0.05. Although it was not possible to group colonies according to their geographic origin, colonies clustered into two groups, each one containing colonies of different localities. Thus, future analyses involving a larger number of colonies as well as microsatellite "primers" specific for M. quadrifasciata, should be necessary to demonstrate how deforestation affects the genetic variability of this species.