Stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Meliponini) feeding on stinkhorn spores (Fungi, Phallales): robbery or dispersal?

Abstract

Records about stingless bee-fungi interaction are very rare. In Brazilian Amazonia, workers of Trigona crassipes (Fabricius, 1793) and Trigona fulviventris Guerin, 1835 visiting two stinkhorn species, Diclyophora sp. and Phallus sp., respec- tively, were observed. The workers licked the fungi gleba, a mucilaginous mass of spores covering the pi leum. Neither gleba residue nor spores were found on the body surface of these bee workers. These observations indicate that these bee species include spores as a complement in their diet. On the other hand, they also suggest that these stingless bees can, at times, fac ilitate spore dispersal, in case intact spores are eliminated with the teces.