Bacterial communities of indoor surface of stingless bee nests.

Leandro Pio De Sousa,Nuno Filipe Azevedo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252933

Abstract

Microbes have been identified as fundamental for the good health of bees, acting as pathogens, protective agent against infection/inorganic toxic compounds, degradation of recalcitrant secondary plant metabolites, definition of social group membership, carbohydrate metabolism, honey and bee pollen production. However, study of microbiota associated with bees have been largely confined to the honeybees and solitary bees. Here, I characterized the microbiota of indoor surface nest of four brazilian stingless bee species (Apidae: Meliponini) with different construction behaviors and populations. Bees that use predominantly plant material to build the nest (Frieseomelitta varia and Tetragonisca angustula) have a microbiome dominated by bacteria found in the phylloplane and flowers such as Pseudomonas sp. and Sphingomonas sp. Species that use mud and feces (Trigona spinipes) possess a microbiome dominated by coliforms such as Escherichia coli and Alcaligenes faecalis. Melipona quadrifasciata, which uses both mud / feces and plant resin, showed a hybrid microbiome with microbes found in soil, feces and plant material. These findings indicate that indoor surface microbiome varies widely among bees and reflects the materials used in the construction of the nests.

Highlights

Since the dawn of large-scale sequencing, much knowledge has been gained about the diversity and role of microbes associated with bees
At the end of the quality control, 31564 sequences were generated for analysis (S1–S8 Appendices), Frieseomelitta varia and Melipona quadrifasciata with the majority (24234 [standard error = ± 584 per sample] and 7217 [standard error = ± 184 per sample] reads respectively) and Tetragonisca angustula and Trigona spinipes contributing with less (36 [standard error = ± 10 per sample] and 77 [standard error = ± 14 per sample] reads respectively)
Frieseomelitta varia is dominated by the genus Pseudomonas (54% of the sequences), almost all of which are identified as Pseudomonas syringae

Summary

Introduction

Since the dawn of large-scale sequencing, much knowledge has been gained about the diversity and role of microbes associated with bees. Despite the great knowledge obtained, most of the data comes from studies with honey bees [8] and some solitary bees from the northern hemisphere [9]. The use of few species greatly limits the knowledge of the relationship between bees and microbes since geography alters the microbiome and each species is related to different microbial communities [10]. One of the least studied groups of bees is the stingless bees.

Methods

Results

Conclusion