Trigona

Trigona (Tetragonisca) angustula MG Defensive recruitment Benzaldehyde 105 [156]... 

So far in our discussion, life has been simple in one respect each action of a pheromone has been the consequence of one or two, or a few in the case of the brown algae, molecules in one species. In nature, things can be more complex. One molecule can serve as a pheromone for multiple species benzaldehyde serves as a trail pheromone for bees, Trigona genus a defense pheromone for ants, Veromessor genus and as a male sex pheromone in the moth, Pseudaletia genus. 

Hexyl decanoate has been identified as the first trail pheromone in a stingless bee, Trigona recur... 

Buchwald, R. and Breed, M.D. (2005). Nestmate recognition cues in a stingless bee, Trigona fulviventris. Anim. Behav., 70,1331-1337. 

Stingless bees lay chemical trails with mandibular gland constituents which have been identified as normal aliphatic alcohols or monoterpene aldehydes. Trigona spinipes generates a trail with a mixture of 2-heptanol, 2-undecanol, and 2-tridecanol, and it has been possible to successfully lay artificial trails with these alcohols (136). Trail following in workers of Trigona subterranea is released by citral (130), the stereoisomers of which are also utilized as alarm pheromones and defensive compounds. Such pheromonal parsimony appears to be especially typical of eusocial bees and ants. 

The LD50 of several compounds was established in the social bee Trigona spinipes using a topical test protocol similar to the one for bumble bees [34],... 

Year/Ref Compound Megachile rotundata Nomia melanderi Bombus terrestris Trigona spinipes Apis mellifera... 

Ants and termites have evolved the same three castes - reproductive, workers and soldiers. Workers and termites soldiers may be male or female, but among ants they are female only, while in the honeybee Apis sp.) and stingless bees (Melipona and Trigona) the larger queens and workers differ from each other but there is no special soldier class 418). For discussion concerning the involvement of pheromones in caste formation and evolution see Blum 419) and Jaffe 420). 

Well-documented studies of interference competition exist. Elimination of supernumerary larval parasitoids by physical attack of conspecifics is a dramatic case of direct interference by a competitor (Salt, 1961). Other examples include physical defense of territories by Pogonomyrmex harvester ants and Trigona bee species, and cannibalism in Tribolium beetles (Young, 1970) (see Section 11.5). Examples of indirect interference competition via chemical mediators have been found increasingly over the past decade (Prokopy, 1981a see also Section 11.5). 

Geranial and neral have been reported as major volatile constituents in two studies of stingless bees (Blum et al., 1970 Crewe and Fletcher, 1976) while a series of 2-alkanols and 2-alkanones have been found in other species (Blum, 1971 Luby et al., 1973). Several of the alkanols and alkanones suggested by Luby et al. were reported as tentative identifications and the experimental details of the species studied by Blum (1971) have never been published. Eleven new world species of Trigona studied by us (Wheeler, unpublished) show these alkanols and alkanones, other alcohols, two spiroketals, and a series of aliphatic esters. Benzaldehyde and 2-heptanone, common constituents of previously investigated species, were absent in these 11 species. 

While stingless bees would seem to be defenseless, such is not the case. Many species are nasty biters and efficiently chase humans from their nests. Trigona tataira is notoriously effective because the secretion from its hypertrophied mandibular glands produces a terrible burning , earning it the name of fire bee (Michener, 1974, pp. 212-17). 

The last tarsomere in all legs of both sexes and all castes of Apis, Bombus, Trigona and Melipona contains a large gland, called the tarsal or Arnhart s gland (Cruz Landim and Staurengo, 1965). The tarsal gland is a secretory cell-lined sac that fills most of the tarsomere and empties via the arolium of the pretarsus. 

Johnson, L. K. (1980) Alarm response of foraging Trigona fulviventris (Hymenoptera Apidae) to mandibular gland components of competing bee species. 7. Kansas ent, Soc., 53, 357-62. 

Luby, J. M., Regnier, F. E., Clarke, E. T., Weaver, E. C. and Weaver, N. (1973) Volatile cephalic substances of the stingless bees, Trigona mexicana and Trigona pectoralis, J, Insect Physiol, 19, 1111-27. 

Taxonomy Cycloartane Triterpenoids Euphorbia trigona Haw. (Euphorbiaceae) [1]. 

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