A first glimpse into the Selva: stingless bee diversity and plant-bee links inferred from adhered pollen in the Peruvian Amazon

Notwithstanding the ecological significance of Meliponini as keystone pollinators in tropical ecosystems, their diversity and interactions with plants remain under-documented due to taxonomic impediments and sampling constraints of the Amazon Basin. By applying an integrative taxonomic approach, 251 stingless bees collected across 7 Peruvian Departments were assigned to 16 genera—with Trigona, Melipona, Nannotrigona, and Tetragonisca as the most prevalent—yielding 66 pollen types from 33 botanical families. To elucidate foraging patterns, body-adhered pollen was identified after extraction using an optimized, non-destructive, sonication technique. While most of the identified botanical families (e.g., Arecaceae, Myrtaceae, Melastomataceae) are consistent with established records of stingless bee-floral interaction in Central/South America, others—including Adoxaceae, Cistaceae, and Theaceae—constitute novel report for this geographic region. Notably, our findings highlighted the role of stingless bees in visiting flora of high economic and ecological importance, such as Camellia sinensis (tea tree), Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato), Croton lechleri (“sangre de grado”), and the flood-forest palm Socratea exorrhiza. Overall these findings underscore the importance of palynological analyses conducted on pollen collected by Meliponini to better characterise the otherwise inaccessible botanical diversity of Amazonia. We also note the need of addressing the knowledge gap in Meliponini taxonomy and biodiversity to better protect the vital ecosystem services they provide in both natural and agroecosystems.