Orchid Bees (Euglossini)
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Orchid Bees (Euglossini)
Mating Behavior
Luiz R. R. Faria1 and Gabriel A. R. Melo2 1 Instituto Latino-Americano de Ciências da Vida e da Natureza, Universidade Federal da Integrac¸ão Latino-Americana, Foz do Iguac¸u, Brazil 2 Departmento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Parana, Curitiba, Brazil
Male orchid bees are set apart from the other corbiculates through their use of aromatic compounds that are central to mating behavior and give the group its common name. They collect these compounds – mostly terpenoids and aromatics – which are widely distributed in nature, but primarily derived from flowers. These scentseeking males have developed extraordinary ▶ pollinating relations with some plants, mostly in the family Orchidaceae [9]. Although some species are readily collected in degraded areas, including small fragments in cities, the greatest euglossine diversity is found in primary forest near the Equator [9]. Through the use of synthetic compounds that attract males by mimicking these natural resources, information on euglossine diversity, distribution, and biology has increased dramatically [15], even as our knowledge of female behavior and nesting biology remains quite modest [6, 9, 17, 20].
Synonyms Euglossine bees; Euglossini Orchid bees (Euglossini) are a New World (mainly Neotropical) group of 240 known species of corbiculate bees in one extinct (Paleoeuglossa) and five living genera [12] (Fig. 1). They are found from the southern USA to northern Argentina. Three living genera (Eufriesea, Euglossa, and Eulaema) contain free-living species, while the other two (Exaerete, cleptoparasites of Eulaema and Eufriesea; and Aglae, cleptoparasites of Eulaema) contain only cuckoo bees [6, 9, 17]. Present evidence suggests that each genus is monophyletic, as is the group as a whole, although the relationships among genera are not fully resolved [6, 15]. It is no exaggeration to say that almost all the possible relations among genera have been proposed over the years.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Starr (ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Insects, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90306-4_91-1
Nest Sites and Structure Nests are known for about 15–20% of species in the nonparasitic genera Euglossa, Eulaema, and Eufriesea. There is a considerable variation in nest sites, construction materials, etc., but with a few exceptions species within each genus share similar nesting habits [6, 9, 17]. Orchid bees behave as
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Orchid Bees (Euglossini)
Orchid Bees (Euglossini), Fig. 1 Representative species of the five extant genera of orchid bees (Euglossini). (a) Aglae coerulea. (b) Exaerete trochanterica. (c) Eufriesea
mariana. (d) Eulaema flavescens. (e) Euglossa (Glossura) asarophora. (f) Euglossa (Glossuropoda) intersecta. All illustrated specimens are males, shown to the same scale
masons in the sense of building nests from malleable materials that are shaped into brood cells. These are somewhat oval in structure, with the long axis mostly horizontal in Eufriesea and mostly vertical in Eulaema and Euglossa. Con
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