Floral oil collection by male Tetrapedia bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Tetrapediini)

Several groups of solitary bees, known as oil-collecting bees, gather lipids from flowers that offer them as their main reward to pollinators. In the Neotropical region, oil-collecting bees belong to the tribes Centridini, Tapinotaspidini, and Tetrapediini (Apidae: Apinae). The floral oils collected...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Apidologie 2012-01, Vol.43 (1), p.39-50
Main Authors: Cappellari, Simone C., Melo, Gabriel A. R., Aguiar, Antonio J. C., Neff, John L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural sciences
Animal and plant ecology
Animal biology
Animal production studies
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Apidae
Autoecology
Biodiversity
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Data processing
Ecology, environment
Entomology
Flowers
Food
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Glands
Hymenoptera
Invertebrate Zoology
Leg
Life Sciences
Lipids
Mating
Nests
Original Article
Pollinators
Protozoa. Invertebrata
Reinforcement
Setae
Sex
Tetrapedia
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Several groups of solitary bees, known as oil-collecting bees, gather lipids from flowers that offer them as their main reward to pollinators. In the Neotropical region, oil-collecting bees belong to the tribes Centridini, Tapinotaspidini, and Tetrapediini (Apidae: Apinae). The floral oils collected by females of these groups are used as larval food or in nest construction. The interaction of these bees with oil flowers is characterized by the presence of specialized structures for oil collection on the legs that morphologically match the location and type of the oil-producing glands on flowers they visit. In addition, these bees have specialized arrays of setae (including the scopae) for oil transport. In a few genera, both sexes display such specialized structures, although floral oil collection has hitherto been regarded as an exclusively female task. Here, we report floral oil collection by males of Tetrapedia , a Neotropical genus of oil-collecting bees. We describe behavioral aspects of oil foraging by males, present data on morphological structures associated with the collection of this resource, and discuss potential hypotheses to explain the significance of floral oils in the mating system of Tetrapedia .
ISSN:0044-8435
1297-9678
DOI:10.1007/s13592-011-0072-2