Pollination services of Africanized honey bees and native Meliponabeecheii to buzz-pollinated annatto (Bixa orellana L.) in theneotropics

Artículo

1 Africanized honey bees (AHBs) are the predominant flower visitors of many plants inthe neotropics, although little evidence is available on their efficiency as pollinatorson native crops.2 Annatto (Bixa orellana) is a buzz-pollinated neotropical tree. We compared thepollination service provided by AHBs and native Melipona beecheii (Mb) to annattoin the Yucatan. As a result of the different abilities of both species to sonicate, aprediction of the present study is that AHBs on individual visits would result in lessefficient pollinators on this crop.3 A higher frequency of AHBs on flowers (73.8 percent) compared with Mb (21.3 percent) wasfound. However, AHBs deposited significantly less pollen on the stigma and producedless fruits, with fewer seeds and weight, than Mb. A higher pollination index efficiencywas obtained for Mb (0.9) compared with AHBs (0.6).4 AHBs did not sonicate annatto and gleaned the pollen released after Mb visits, whichsuggests that they act as commensals of the latter.5 By acting as commensals, AHBs, despite their high abundance, appear to marginallycontribute to the pollination of annatto. Studies conducted under scenarios with adifferential abundance of AHBs and efficient sonicating species are necessary to testthis hypothesis on annatto and other buzz-pollinated plants in the neotropics.