Genetic Divergence Between Populations Of
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Genetics and Molecular Biology, 30, 3, 667-675 (2007) Copyright by the Brazilian Society of Genetics. Printed in Brazil www.sbg.org.br Research Article Genetic divergence between populations of the stingless bee uruçu amarela (Melipona rufiventris group, Hymenoptera, Meliponini): Is there a new Melipona species in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais? Mara Garcia Tavares, Luiz Antonio dos Santos Dias, Andréia Arantes Borges, Denilce Meneses Lopes, Angélica Helene Pereira Busse, Ronaldo Guimarães Costa, Tânia Maria Fernandes Salomão and Lucio Antonio de Oliveira Campos Departamento de Biologia Geral, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, MG, Brazil. Abstract Allozyme, microsatellite and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) molecular markers were used to investi- gate the within and between population genetic variability and between population genetic differentiation of the Bra- zilian stingless bee uruçu amarela (nominally Melipona rufiventris Lepeletier, 1836) present in savanna and Atlantic forest habitats of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais (MG). We found low levels of within population variability, al- though there were a large number of private alleles that specifically characterized these populations. The FST values indicated a high level of genetic diversity between populations. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed a high degree of population differentiation between the savanna and Atlantic forest habitats, confirmed by population pairwise FST data. Principal coordinates analysis and unweighted pair-group method using an arithmetic average (UPGMA) dendrograms also confirmed that in Minas Gerais the savanna populations (M. rufiventris) were geneti- cally distinct from those present in the Atlantic forest (M. mondury). In addition, populations from locations near the towns of Dom Bosco and Brasilândia de Minas were genetically different from those collected in other localities in the savanna. Our data indicate that populations of uruçu amarela found in the savanna and Atlantic forest habitats of Minas Gerais state should be treated separately for conservation purposes and that special attention should be given to the populations found in the region of Dom Bosco and Brasilândia de Minas until their taxonomic status is clarified. Key words: endangered species, genetic divergence, molecular markers, stingless bees, uruçu amarela. Received: May 26, 2006; Accepted: January 31, 2007. Introduction sociated habitat types and it is possible that many locally In Brazil there are approximately 192 species of adapted ecotypes have arisen. For instance, variation in re- stingless bees (Silveira et al., 2002), which play an impor- lation to the color of the posterior legs of M. rufiventris was tant role in the pollination of a large number of wild plants found when different populations were analyzed by Moure and crops in Brazilian ecosystems (Kerr et al., 1996). How- and Kerr (1950) and Moure (1975), who reported that there ever, Campos (1998) stated that populations of the stingless were some specimens almost without black spots on the bee Melipona rufiventris (uruçu amarela) were being dras- posterior tibia in the states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, tically reduced due to deforestation, predatory honey col- São Paulo and Paraná while specimens from Bahia, Goiás, lecting and widespread burning, leading to the inclusion of São Paulo and Santa Catarina presented a large black spot these bees in the endangered species list of the Brazilian on the apical portion of the posterior tibia and in all basi- state of Minas Gerais. tarsus. The corbicula and tergal hairs also presented vari- Populations of uruçu amarela occur in southeastern ability in the specimens analyzed, which led to the sugges- Brazil from the state of Bahia to the state of Santa Catarina tion that there was much to be done for a better knowledge and have usually been considered as a single species, M. of the different forms attributed to this species (Moure, rufiventris (Moure, 1975) but such an extensive distribu- 1992). tion encompasses diverse environmental conditions and as- In 2002, our laboratory initiated a project to analyze the genetic variation among populations of uruçu amarela collected in the savanna and in the Atlantic forest of Minas Send correspondence to Mara Garcia Tavares. Departamento de Biologia Geral, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, 36570-000 Viço- Gerais state. Biochemical analysis demonstrated different sa, MG, Brazil. E-mail: [email protected]. migration rates of some enzymatic loci (Est-1, Est-2, Est-3, 668 Tavares et al. Est-4, Pep-1, and Mdh-1) between colonies collected in dif- and in Atlantic forest habitats of Minas Gerais state and ferent regions (Costa et al., 2005). also to analyze the genetic differentiation between the pop- Melo (2003) reported morphological evidence to sug- ulations. gest that uruçu amarela populations from southeastern Bra- zil in fact comprised two different species, M. rufiventris Materials and Methods and M. mondury. According to this author, the typical sa- vanna species M. rufiventris occurs in Mato Grosso, north- Genetic material western São Paulo, western Minas Gerais and southern Samples were collected in ten savanna habitats and Goiás, while M. mondury is distributed across the Atlantic seven Atlantic forest habitats localities within Minas Ge- forest where it is found in the states of Bahia, Espírito rais, the geographic distribution and the number of colonies Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná and sampled in each locality being show in Figure 1 and Ta- Santa Catarina. As argued by Melo (2003), however, the ble 1. For all statistical analyses, colonies were grouped ac- recognition of these species based on the morphology of cording to locality and each locality was considered as worker bees is very difficult. representing a population. Bees were collected at the en- Studies concerning the genetic variability of these trance of their colonies and transferred, alive, to our Labo- different forms of uruçu amarela may provide relevant data ratory where they were stored at -70 °C until need for on their population structure, kin relationships and gene electrophoretic analyses. Voucher specimens from both flow between remnant populations. These data are very im- biomes were deposited in the insect collection at the Ento- portant for elaborating strategies for their conservation. It is mology Museum of the Universidade Federal de Viçosa also important to bear in mind that less than 9% of the origi- (UFVB) (Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil) and in the bee col- nal Atlantic forest remains and that a great number of tropi- lection of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais cal tree species are pollinated by Melipona bees. (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Genetic analysis of populations has been greatly en- hanced with the progress of molecular techniques. Con- Allozyme analysis sidering that various classes of molecular markers are now We analyzed 87 colonies with allozyme markers us- available, it is possible to compare the patterns of structure ing eight bees per colony. Individual worker bees were di- revealed by them in order to verify how gene flow, drift and vided into two parts, head/mesosoma and metasoma, which selection govern the distribution of genetic variation within were homogenized in 100 μL of 0.2% (v/v) b-mercapto- and between populations of a given species. ethanol solution and kept on ice. For allozyme analysis the This paper describes the use of allozyme, micro- homogenates were absorbed with Whatman N° 3 filter pa- satellite and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) pers and applied to standard horizontal 14% (w/v) starch markers to investigate the genetic variability within and be- gels and electrophoresis conducted according to the proce- tween uruçu amarela populations present in the savanna dures of Harris and Hopkinsons (1978). The following en- Figure 1 - Map of Brazil (A) and Minas Gerais (B) state (B) showing the geographic location of the 17 natural populations of uruçu amarela bees ana- lyzed. Genetic divergence between uruçu amarela populations 669 Table 1 - Location and number of uruçu amarela colonies sampled in the acrylamide gel and visualized by staining with 0.2% (w/v) savanna and the Atlantic forest of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Data silver nitrate. The lengths of amplified alleles were checked ordered by increasing latitude. using a 10 bp DNA ladder (Invitrogen, São Paulo, Brazil). Habitat and location (code) Latitude Number of and longitude colonies RAPD analysis Savanna habitat For the RAPD marker analysis we used one bee from Dom Bosco (DB) 16°39’ S, 46°16’ W 2 each of 70 colonies. The PCR-RAPD analyses were per- formed as described by Williams et al. (1990), with some Brasilândia de Minas (BR) 17°00’ S, 46°00’ W 5 modifications. Each PCR reaction used a total volume of Patos de Minas (PA) 18°34’ S, 46°31’ W 6 25 μL with 1x reaction buffer, 0.1 mM dNTPs, 0.4 μM Guimarânia (GU) 18°50’ S, 46°47’ W 20 10-base primer (Operon Technologies, Alameda, CA, Patrocínio (PT) 18°56’ S, 46°59’ W 2 USA), 0.5 U Taq polymerase (Phoneutria, Belo Horizonte, Pequi (PE) 19°37’ S, 44°39’ W 2 Minas Gerais, Brazil) and 2 μL template DNA (25 ng). Am- Uberaba (UB) 19°44’ S, 47°55’ W 2 plification was in a PTC-100 thermocycler (MJ Research) Córrego Danta (CD) 19°49’ S, 45°54’ W 4 programmed for 40 cycles, each cycle consisting of 15 s at Arcos (AR) 20°16’ S, 45°32’ W 4 94 °C, 30 s at 35 °C and 1 min at 72 °C, with a final exten- th Formiga (FO) 20°27’ S, 45°25’ W 2 sion after the 40 cycle for 7 min at 72 °C. The amplifica- tion products were separated by electrophoresis in 1.2% Subtotal for savanna colonies 49 (w/v) agarose gels in TBE (90 mM Tris-borate pH 8.0, Atlantic forest habitat 10 mM EDTA) buffer and stained with ethidium bromide Poté (PO) 17°48’ S, 41°47’ W 5 (0.2 μg/mL).