Radiofrequency identification (RFID) reveals long-distance flight and homing abilities of the stingless bee Melipona fasciculata
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Costa, Luciano
Campbell, Alistair John
Arruda, Helder
Leon Contrera, Felipe Andres
Galaschi Teixeira, Juliana Stephanie
Correa Gomes, Rafael Leandro
Pessin, Gustavo
Pereira, Daniel Santiago
de Souza, Paulo
Imperatre-Fonseca, Vera Lucia
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Abstract
Determining bee flight capacity is crucial for developing management strategies for bee conservation and/or crop pollination and purposes. In this study, we determined the flight distance of the stingless bee Melipona fasciculata using the radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology. For this, we conducted two translocation experiments using workers equipped with RFID microsensors: (1) release of bees at seven distances between 100 and 3000 m from experimental colonies in Belém, Brazil, and (2) at six distances between 1500 and 10,000 m at Carajás National Forest Reserve. Return rates of workers were negatively correlated to release distance, with typical flight distances of 2 km, but a maximum homing distance of 10 km. Use of RFID tags revealed how past experiments may have greatly underestimated homing abilities of stingless bees.
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Apidologie
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© The Author(s), 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Zoology
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Nunes-Silva, P; Costa, L; Campbell, AJ; Arruda, H; Contrera, FAL; Teixeira, JSG; Gomes, RLC; Pessin, G; Pereira, DS; de Souza, P; Imperatriz-Fonseca, VL, Radiofrequency identification (RFID) reveals long-distance flight and homing abilities of the stingless bee Melipona fasciculata, Apidologie