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Paratrigona subnuda, known as the Earth Jataí, is a species of stingless bee in the family Apidea and subfamily Meliponinea. These social bees are prevalent in NeoTropical Moist Forests, including Brazilian Atlantic and other Mesoamerica Forests. They inhabit speherical nests in moist underground environments. Earth Jataí’s main source of food is pollen and nectar from a large variety of native Mesoamerican tropical plants. They have been extensively studied for social conflicts arising from single mate behaviors and particular virgin behaviors.

Taxonomy and Phylogeny
Earth Jataí bees belong to the family Apidea, but far exceed diversity and habitat distribution compared to honeybees. Meliponinea (stingless bees) is one of the three subfamilies belonging to the Apidea family. Within the Meliponinea subfamily, Earth Jataí belongs to the Meliponini tribe. The Meliponini tribe is defined by distinctive phenotypic differences of dorsal vessels. Earth Jataí also belongs to the genus Paratrigona (Mesoamerica).

Description and Identification
Morphologically, Earth Jataí bees express all the features constituted in the subfamily of Meliponini. This includes reduction of wing venation, stiff setae or penicillum located on the anterior portion of the hind tibia and reduction of the stinger. As a member of the Meliponini tribe, Earth Jataí bees also express distinctive dorsal vessel phenotypes. This includes an arch formed by dorsal vessels between thorax longitudinal muscles, forward migrated position of the abdominal ganglia and extended digestive tract. In general, Meliponini members also tend to be have a denser hair covering, shorter wings and are larger compared to Trigonini tribe counterparts. There is a very obvious size distinction between the queens and the workers of Earth Jataí species. The Earth Jataí worker is .5-.8 cm in size and have a smaller head and thorax compared to queen bees. A physogastric queen (contains a swollen abdominal) is about double the size of a worker and are about 1.2-1.8 cm in size. The nests of Earth Jataí bees are spherical in shape and are relatively small in size (1000-1500 bees). The nest is protected by several sheets of involucrum, which helps keep the nest insulated in the moist underground environments. Within the outer protective involucrum layer is the helicoid brood comb, which contain eggs’ cells. The comb’s cells can either be pear-shaped or larger and normal shaped. Within a strong colony, there will be approximately 26 cells. These nests are built underground in moist and soft Neotropical soil. Normally they are less than one meter deep. In the Brazilian Atlantic forests, these nests were found about 25-120 cm underground. {{cite journal|author1=Eva Toth|author2=David C. Queller|author3=Vera L. Imperatriz-Fonseca|author4=Joan E. Strassmann|title=Genetic and Behavioral conflict over male production between workers and queens in the stingless bee Paratrigona subnuda|journal=Behavioral Ecology

Distribution and Habitat
Earth Jataí bees are found in Neotropical Moist Forest and Urban Areas in Mesoamerica. They have particularly be studied in Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo within Brazil. They can also be found in south to east regions of Central Brazil. As mentioned above, their nests are in the soft and moist soil of these Neotropical Environments.3 This particular species is considered to be common within the Brazilian Neotropical habitats. {{cite journal|author1=Eva Toth|author2=David C. Queller|author3=Vera L. Imperatriz-Fonseca|author4=Joan E. Strassmann|title=Genetic and Behavioral conflict over male production between workers and queens in the stingless bee Paratrigona subnuda|journal=Behavioral Ecology

Colony Cycle
New colony formation is a progressive process within stingless bee species. The new materials, including those for construction and for food, are transported by workers to the site of the new nests. With Earth Jataí bees, particular new nests can be the abandoned pots of ants. Daughter queen bees leave the colony for the new colony during nesting. This is partly due to the physogastric queens who are unable to move to swarm to the new colony. There is also contact between the mother queen and the new queen that can last for weeks or months.This phenomena is a consequence of Earth Jataí bee’s single mate behaviors. Under single mating, there is a lower conflict between daughter and mother queens. This is due to that fact that there is an increased relatedness between daughter queen and the mother queen’s progeny. When males are produced by the queen, workers will shift their interest to the daughter queen because they have higher relatedness to the new queen’s sons. Once colonies have been established, they usually are contained in a single nest and have a population of about 1000-1500 bees. In Earth Jataí, swarming departure occurs on the same day of the resource transport to the new nest and occurs very fast.

Dominance Hierachy
Within the Earth Jataí, only females are divided into the castes, which are queens and workers. There are two types of queens within a nest, that includes the one, singly mated queen and then virgin daughters queens kept in reserve. Workers are the daughters of the one, singly mated queens. Within Earth Jataí there is a shift of power between the Queen and the workers. Due to her larger size, Queen are able to aggressively push workers, but ultimately were successful at laying their eggs.It was later found that workers have specific strategies that allow for oviposition.

Division of Labor
Similar to other Stingless bees, Earth Jataí have distinctive divisions of labor conducted by different age and in relation of needs. There are four distinctive jobs done at different times in a worker’s lifespan. The first is self-grooming which is performed after the first hours emerging from the pupea. After, there is incubation and brood chamber repairs. This is followed by rearing behaviors, including provisioning cells, construction of cells and cleaning. Workers are also responsible for feeding both the young adult bees and the singly mated Queen bee. Workers must also participate in reconstruction behaviors. Reconstruction behaviors include reconstructing involucrum, entrance guard duty, cleaning of nest and receiving nectar. Finally, there is also the collection of pollen and nectar as food sources.

Mating Behaviors
Within an Earth Jataí colony, there is a single Queen that will have a single mate which will fertilize all her eggs. The queen will go into a nuptial flight and the male’s genitals become stuck to the genitals of the female, which is called a mating sign. In Earth Jataí, the males do not congregate at the front of the entrance of Virgin Queens newly established colony. Workers do have ovarian development and can lay trophic eggs.

Foraging Behaviors
Fight activity is crucial for foraging behaviors of the Earth Jataí and are dependent upon many environment factors including temperature and relative humidity. Specifically for Earth Jataí, the greatest flight activity was found to arise during temperatures between 24.0 Celsius and 25.0 Celsius. They forage for pollen and nectar, which are then stored within nest pots.

Virgin Queen Behavior
The Earth Jataí virgin queens have a very particular behavior of finding refuge in empty foot pots within the nest. When the virgin queens become “attractive,” they develop tergal and mandibular glands and maintain contact with workers. Yet once their glandular products run out, they will then take refuge in pots and use their mandible to seal the pot. How long they send in the pot can vary from hours to minutes. Before leaving, they will stick their antennas out of the pot to examine their external environment. Once their glandular product has been replenished, they will circulate around the colony again. This process will continue to happen as the virgin queen until she is mature. Throughout her maturation, she will over go many different changes in glandular secretions. At the peak of her “attractiveness” she is secreting pheromone and will try to supersede the queen.

Oviposition Process Behavior
The singly mated Queen will lay her eggs within the royal cells and will lay a separate egg in each cell which has been supplied with food. Minutes before the queen lays her egg, the workers will regurgitate their food into the cell. The queen will lay her egg on top of this food and then the cell will be closed rapidly by the workers. Workers have mechanisms to disrupt this process and reproduce male progeny.

Relatedness
Due to the single mating behavior, Earth Jataí show a haplodiploid genetic structure of social Hymenoptera bees. In this system, the workers will be full sisters that are 75% related to one another and are 50% related to the queen. If a worker produces a male it will be 50% related to her, but a Queen’s son is only 25% related to a worker. In this system, a worker should be direct competition with a queen for male production.

Worker Queen Conflict
Due to hymenoptera relatedness, there is a conflict between workers and Queen for the production of male progeny. Queens will eat the workers eggs, and some eggs have even developed as trophic eggs, perhaps reflecting an evolutionary history of conflict. The workers have developed two strategies to oppose the Queen’s male progeny. One strategy is to lay their eggs in reopened cells that contain the recent eggs from the oviposition process. The other strategy is to open cells that have been provisioned 1-2 days earlier and lay their eggs. The Queen have the size to forcefully push the workers bees as an attemptto stop worker oviposition, but workers were found to return later to lay eggs. As a result of this conflict, worker bees actually contribute 64% of the male progeny within a single colony.

Diet
The main component of the Earth Jataí’s diet is nectar and pollen. They get their pollen and nectar from over 200 kinds of plant species within NeoTropical environments, including Zanthoxylum hyemale and Baccharis milleflora. As a species, they have been referenced as one of the top three most interacting Brazilian Bee species with plant species.