Stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Meliponini) feeding on stinkhorn spores (Fungi, Phallales): robbery or dispersal?
| Autor: | Elder F. Morato, Marcio L. Oliveira |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2000 |
| Předmět: |
biology
Trigona Phallus (fungus) fungi Hymenoptera biology.organism_classification Phallales Spore spore dispersal Stingless bee-fungi interaction robbery Trigona fulviventris Botany lcsh:Zoology behavior and behavior mechanisms Biological dispersal Phallus Animal Science and Zoology lcsh:Q Dictyophora lcsh:QL1-991 lcsh:Science Feces Gleba |
| Zdroj: | Revista Brasileira de Zoologia, Vol 17, Iss 3, Pp 881-884 (2000) Revista Brasileira de Zoologia, Volume: 17, Issue: 3, Pages: 881-884, Published: SEP 2000 |
| ISSN: | 0101-8175 |
| Popis: | Records about stingless bee-fungi interaction are very rare. In Brazilian Amazonia, workers of Trigona crassipes (Fabricius, 1793) and Trigona fulviventris Guerin, 1835 visiting two stinkhorn species, Dictyophora sp. and Phallus sp., respectively, were observed. The workers licked the fungi gleba, a mucilaginous mass of spores covering the pileum. Neither gleba residue nor spores were found on the body surface of these bee workers. These observations indicate that these bee species include spores as a complement in their diet. On the other hand, they also suggest that these stingless bees can, at times, facilitale spore dispersal, in case intact spores are eliminated with the feces. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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