# Phylogeography of Partamona rustica (Hymenoptera, Apidae), an Endemic Stingless Bee f



## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Phylogeography of Partamona rustica (Hymenoptera, Apidae), an Endemic Stingless Bee from the Neotropical Dry Forest Diagonal

The South America encompasses the highest levels of biodiversity found anywhere in the world and its rich biota is distributed among many different biogeographical regions. However, many regions of South America are still poorly studied, including its xeric environments, such as the threatened Caatinga and Cerrado phytogeographical domains. In particular, the effects of Quaternary climatic events on the demography of endemic species from xeric habitats are poorly understood. The present study uses an integrative approach to reconstruct the evolutionary history of Partamona rustica, an endemic stingless bee from dry forest diagonal in Brazil, in a spatial-temporal framework. In this sense, we sequenced four mitochondrial genes and genotyped eight microsatellite loci. Our results identified two population groups: one to the west and the other to the east of the São Francisco River Valley (SFRV). These groups split in the late Pleistocene, and the Approximate Bayesian Computation approach and phylogenetic reconstruction indicated that P. rustica originated in the west of the SFRV, subsequently colonising eastern region. Our tests of migration detected reduced gene flow between these groups. Finally, our results also indicated that the inferences both from the genetic data analyses and from the spatial distribution modelling are compatible with historical demographic stability.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0164441


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Would you mind defining some words and phrases?
Biota, phytogeographical, quaternary, Pleistocene, Approximate Bayesian Computation, and microsatellite loci. 
Just cut and paste them definitions please.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

biota - the animal and plant life of a particular region, habitat, or geological period.
phytogeographical - plant and "geography" meaning also distribution) or botanical geography is the branch of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution of plant species and their influence on the earth's surface
quaternary - fourth in order or rank; belonging to the fourth order, of, relating to, or denoting the most recent period in the Cenozoic era, following the Tertiary period and comprising the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs (and thus including the present).
Pleistocene - the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's most recent period of repeated glaciations 
Approximate Bayesian Computation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_Bayesian_computation
microsatellite loci - A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs are repeated, typically ... Thus, the mutation rate at microsatellite loci is expected to differ from other mutation rates, such as base substitution rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsatellite


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

What exactly are we talking about? Can you dumb it down to around the 6th grade level for me? Dinosaur bees? 

I am very very very extremely impressed but can't understand the topic.


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## JClark (Apr 29, 2012)

Nothing of use for keeping Apis mellifera--honey bees.

This article is talking about population divergences of a stingless bee as it relates to past climatic norms a long time ago. 

He scans the peer reviewed literature and posts what he finds here for fun. Usually the articles provide no useful value to the hobbyist beekeeper. I enjoy reading some of them when I have time but have the scientific background to understand.

A good place to visit if you are looking for the incorporation of scientific data into the beekeeping hobby is scientificbeekeeping.com He does a good job of distilling down the useful information and explaining the limitations of the information provided.


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