Caracterización morfométrica del ala de especies de abejas nativas sin aguijón en la amazonía ecuatoriana.

Abstract

The objective of the present investigation was to characterize by means of geometric morphometry of the wing, species of native stingless bees in the Ecuadorian Amazon, this was conducted during the year 2022, from November to February 2023, in Francisco de Orellana, Orellana province, La Belleza parish, for the study a sampling with water traps and entomological net was carried out in the laboratory, the left front wing was removed with the help of entomological forceps, as close as possible to the base of the thorax, to be later placed on slide frames to be scanned with the scanner (Plustek OpticFilm 8100 Film Scanner), 13 reference points were placed on the images at the venal intersections of the wing with the software TPSdig2 version 2.16 and the TPS files were prepared with the software TPSUtil version 1.46. The data obtained in TPSDig, which represents the position of the coordinates of each, anatomical points referential (PAR) in a Cartesian plane, were exported to the software MORPHOJ version 1.4; after applying the discriminant function analysis, all individuals were assigned to their original group, identifying 100%, however, when applying the cross-validation test, 71.12% were correctly recognized. Geotrigona mombuca, Tetragona clavipes, captotrigona mexicana, Trigona silvestriana, Oxytrigona mellicolor, Plebeia sp., Lestrimelitta sp., and Tetragonisca angustula. In conclusion, geometric morphometry serves as an accurate tool to discriminate native bee species, both at the exploratory and confirmatory levels, with which we were able to identify 8 species of native bees in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It is recommended to expand the study area, because in this area only flora exclusive to the livestock area was found.