Abstract
Euglossini are solitary bees considered important pollinators of many orchid species. Information regarding chromosome organization is available for only a small number of species in this group. In the present work, the species Euglossa townsendi and E. carolina were analyzed by cytogenetic techniques to collect information that may aid the understanding of their evolution and chromosomal organization. The chromosome number found was n = 21 for males and 2n = 42 for females in the two species. The distribution and amount of heterochromatin regions differed in the two species analyzed, where they were classified as high or low heterochromatin content, similarly to what has already been performed in social bee species of the genus Melipona. Banding patterns found in this study suggest that other mechanisms may have occurred in the karyotype evolution of this group, unlike those suggested for social bees and ants. Karyotype evolution of solitary bees appears to have occurred as an event separate from other hymenopterans and did not involve chromosome fissions and heterochromatin amplification.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Hymenoptera order attracts great interest from the field of cytogenetics
Among insects, the Hymenoptera order attracts great interest from the field of cytogenetics
Two Euglossa species have been studied cytogenetically, E. cyanaspis and E. hyacinthina (Eltz et al 1997), and chromosome numbers presented by these species are n = 21 and n = 20, respectively
Summary
The Hymenoptera order attracts great interest from the field of cytogenetics. Different bee (review in Rocha et al 2003) and ant species (Lorite and Palomeque 2010) have already been investigated. These bees exhibit solitary behavior and have received attention in recent years in particular because they are effective. Among the five genera of Euglossini, Euglossa Latreille (1802) is the most diverse, composed of six subgenera with about 122 species (Nemésio 2009). This number may be much higher as there are constant revisions and faunal surveys needed, as well as the group taxonomy is extremely complicated due to the large number of morphological similarities
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