Pollen diet diversity across bee lineages varies with lifestyle rather than colony size.

The shift to a pollen diet and the evolution of more highly organized societies, i.e., eusocial, were key milestones in bee diversification over their evolutionary history, culminating in a high dependence on feeding broods with a large variety of floral resources. Here, we hypothesized that obligatory eusocial bees have a wider diet diversity than their relatives with solitary lifestyles, and this would be related to colony size. To test both hypotheses, we surveyed diet breadth data (palynological analysis) based on the Shannon-Wiener index (H') for 85 bee taxa. We also obtained colony size for 47 eusocial bee species. These data were examined using phylogenetic comparative methods. The results support the generalist strategy as a derived trait for the bee taxa evaluated here. The dietary diversity of eusocial bees (H': 2.1, on average) was 67.5% higher than that of noneusocial bees (H': 1.21, on average). There was, however, no relationship between diet breadth and colony size, indicating that smaller colonies can harvest a pollen variety as diverse as larger colonies. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the impact of lifestyle on the diversity of collected pollen. Furthermore, this work sheds light on an advantage of living in more highly structured societies irrespective of the size of the colony.

Survivorship and food consumption of immatures and adults of Apis mellifera and Scaptotrigona bipunctata exposed to genetically modified eucalyptus pollen.

Eucalyptus comprises the largest planted area of cultivated production forest in Brazil. Genetic modification (GM) of eucalyptus can provide additional characteristics for increasing productivity and protecting wood yield, as well as potentially altering fiber for a diversity of industrial uses. However, prior to releasing a new GM plant, risk assessments studies with non-target organisms must be undertaken. Bees are prominent biological models since they play an important role in varied ecosystems, including for Eucalyptus pollination. The main goal of this study was to evaluate whether a novel event (Eucalyptus 751K032), which carries the cp4-epsps gene that encodes the protein CP4-EPSPS and nptII gene that encodes the protein NPTII, might adversely affect honey bees (Apis mellifera) and stingless bees (Scaptotrigona bipunctata). The experiments were performed in southern Brazil, as follows: (i) larvae and adults were separately investigated, (ii) three or four different pollen diets were offered to bees, depending on larval or adult status, and (iii) two biological attributes, i.e., survivorship of larvae and adults and food intake by adults were evaluated. The diets were prepared with pollen from GM Eucalyptus 751K032; pollen from conventional Eucalyptus clone FGN-K, multifloral pollen or pure larval food. The insecticide dimethoate was used to evaluate the sensitivity of bees to toxic substances. Datasets were analyzed with Chi-square test, survival curves and repeated measures ANOVA. Results indicated no evidence of adverse effects of Eucalyptus pollen 751K032 on either honey bees or stingless bees assessed here. Therefore, the main findings suggest that the novel event may be considered harmless to these organisms since neither survivorship nor food consumption by bees were affected by it.

iTUPA: an online automated application to perform Topographic-Unit Parsimony Analysis.

SUMMARY: iTUPA is a free online application for automatizing the Topographic-Unit Parsimony Analysis (TUPA), which identifies areas of endemism based on topography. iTUPA generates species-occurrences matrices based on user-defined topographic units (TUs) and provides a parsimony analysis of the generated matrix. We tested iTUPA after a proposal of regionalization for the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. iTUPA can handle millions of species registers simultaneously and uses Google Earth high-definition maps to visually explore the endemism data. We believe iTUPA is a useful tool for further discussions on biodiversity conservation. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: iTUPA is hosted on Google cloud and freely available at http://nuvem.ufabc.edu.br/itupa. iTUPA is implemented using R (version 3.5.1), with RStudio 1.1.453 used as the implementation IDE, Shiny 1.1.0 web framework, and Google Maps® API version 3.36.

GeX: an automated tool for generating XYD files for analysis of endemicity using VNDM.

In the last decade, a method widely used to delimit areas of endemism is the analysis of endemicity (AE), a non-hierarchical and grid-dependent algorithm implemented through the package NDM/VNDM. Its input files are based on lists of georeferenced taxa, and any mistakes in their preparation will influence the results of the analyses. We describe here a free online automated tool for generating the input files for VNDM from simple spreadsheets.

Looking beyond the flowers: associations of stingless bees with sap-sucking insects.

The main sources of food for stingless bees are the nectar and pollen harvested from flowers, whereas one important kind of nesting material (i.e. wax) is produced by their own abdominal glands. Stingless bees can, nonetheless, obtain alternative resources of food and wax from exudates released by sap-sucking insects as honeydew and waxy cover, respectively. To date, there are no comprehensive studies investigating how diversified and structured the network interactions between stingless bees and sap-sucking insects are. Here, we conducted a survey of the data on relationship between stingless bees and sap-sucking insects to evaluate: (1) which resources are collected by which stingless bee species; (2) how diverse the interaction network is, using species degree and specialisation index as a proxy; and if (3) there would be any phylogenetic signal in the species degree and specialisation indices. Our findings demonstrate that approximately 21 stingless bee species like Trigona spp. and Oxytrigona spp. have been observed interacting with 11 sap-sucking species, among which Aethalion reticulatum is the main partner. From ca. 50 records, Brazil is the country with most observations (n = 38) of this type of ecological interaction. We found also that stingless bees harvest fivefold more honeydew than waxy covers on sap-sucking insects. However, we did not find any phylogenetic signal for the occurrence of this interaction, considering species degree and specialisation indices, suggesting that both traits apparently evolved independently among stingless bee species. We suggest that specific ecological demands may drive this opportunistic behaviour exhibited by stingless bees, because major sources of food are obtained from flowers and these bees produce their own wax.

Queen bee acceptance under threat: Neurotoxic insecticides provoke deep damage in queen-worker relationships.

Virgin queens (gynes) exhibit a range of behaviors in order to be accepted as the leader of colony. However, environmental neurotoxic insecticides as neonicotinoids may affect the social performance of the bees. Here, we evaluated the sublethal effects of neonicotinoid imidacloprid on the larval food of queens from Plebeia droryana, a species of neotropical stingless bee. Several behaviors were analyzed as multivariate response variables in a Hotelling test, as well as generalized additive mixed models. Our findings demonstrate that treated queens perform less wing vibration and trophallaxis with their workers. Furthermore, the treated gynes encounter more harassment (aggression) from their workers, suggesting that workers can differentiate nontreated queens from treated queens most likely by chemical signals. Our data indicate that the behavioral repertoire underlying the queen selection process by the stingless bee P. droryana may be seriously affected by residual doses of imidacloprid in larval food. As a result, such queens are rather undernourished and aggressed by workers, which most likely compromises the viability and permanence of colonies in the long term.

Monogamy in large bee societies: a stingless paradox.

High genetic diversity is important for the functioning of large insect societies. Across the social Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps), species with the largest colonies tend to have a high colony-level genetic diversity resulting from multiple queens (polygyny) or queens that mate with multiple males (polyandry). Here we studied the genetic structure of Trigona spinipes, a stingless bee species with colonies an order of magnitude larger than those of polyandrous honeybees. Genotypes of adult workers and pupae from 43 nests distributed across three Brazilian biomes showed that T. spinipes colonies are usually headed by one singly mated queen. Apart from revealing a notable exception from the general incidence of high genetic diversity in large insect societies, our results reinforce previous findings suggesting the absence of polyandry in stingless bees and provide evidence against the sperm limitation hypothesis for the evolution of polyandry. Stingless bee species with large colonies, such as T. spinipes, thus seem promising study models to unravel alternative mechanisms to increase genetic diversity within colonies or understand the adaptive value of low genetic diversity in large insect societies.

The man who loved flies: a biographical profile of Nelson Papavero .

Nelson Papavero is one of the major Brazilian zoologists. His contribution to the field began in the second half of the twentieth century, when he started publishing in the areas of entomology, systematics, biogeography, and history of science, while working at graduate courses and training teachers and students. Papavero was one of the earliest Brazilian advocates of Hennig's phylogenetic systematics. In his entomological work, his first widely recognised works were the Catalogue of South American Diptera and his essays on the history of Neotropical Dipterology. Papavero's greatest contribution however, is in his Special Courses on Zoological Systematics, as well as his numerous administrative positions during his academic career. All these were fundamental to the development of zoology and comparative biology in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Here we present a biography of Nelson Papavero, along with several personal anecdotes, and his role in the development of Brazilian biological systematics over the last 50 years. 

Harnessing the power of AI language models for taxonomy and systematics: a follow-up to "Can ChatGPT be leveraged for taxonomic investigations? Potential and limitations of a new technology" by Davinack (2023).

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Female community health agents' structure of social thinking about domestic violence against women. / Estrutura de pensamento social de agentes comunitárias de saúde sobre violência doméstica contra a mulher.

This study aimed at describing community health agents' representational structure on domestic violence against women. A quantitative-qualitative research study based on the Theory of Social Representations in its structural approach and carried out in a municipality from inland Bahia, Brazil. The community health agents participated through free evocation and centrality techniques: choix-par-bloc, constitution of word pairs and mise-en-cause, from May to August 2019. Data analysis was carried out by means of the EVOC software (Ensemble of Programs Permettant I'analyse des Evocations), similarity analysis and mise-en-cause analysis. These professionals' representational structure is organized from the central elements of disrespect and sadness, which attribute negative meanings to the representation regarding their positions and repercussions; the other elements integrate specific information to the structure of the representations, justifying them. It is concluded that the understanding regarding organization of the community agents' social thinking about the phenomenon allows its problematization, as well as the elaboration of prevention and coping strategies for women in situations of violence, the aggressors and the community.

Este estudo objetivou descrever a estrutura representacional de agentes comunitários de saúde sobre violência doméstica contra a mulher. Pesquisa quanti-qualitativa fundamentada na Teoria das Representações Sociais na abordagem estrutural. Participaram 107 agentes comunitárias de saúde vinculadas a 18 Unidades de Saúde da Família de um município do interior da Bahia, Brasil, durante os meses de maio a agosto de 2019. A coleta de dados ocorreu por meio das técnicas de evocações livres e de centralidade: choix-par-bloc, constituição de pares de palavras e mise-en-cause. Para a análise dos dados, utilizou-se o software EVOC (Ensemble de Programmes Permettant I'analyse des Evocations), análise de similitude e análise do mise-en-cause. A estrutura representacional das profissionais se organiza a partir dos elementos centrais desrespeito e tristeza, que atribuem à representação sentidos negativos relativos a seus posicionamentos e suas repercussões. Conclui-se que a organização do pensamento social das agentes comunitárias sobre o fenômeno apresenta uma dimensão atitudinal e afetiva que fortalece a elaboração de estratégias de enfrentamento a situação de violência contra mulheres, agressores e comunidade.

Assessing Negative Welfare Measures for Wild Invertebrates: The Case for Octopuses.

Welfare metrics have been established for octopuses in the laboratory, but not for octopuses living in the wild. Wild octopuses are constantly exposed to potentially harmful situations, and the ability to assess the welfare status of wild octopuses could provide pertinent information about individuals' health and species' resilience to stressors. Here, we used underwater photos and videos to identify injuries and stress-related behaviors in wild Octopus insularis in a variety of contexts, including interacting with fishermen, interacting with other octopuses and fish, proximity to predators, in den, foraging, and in senescence. We adapted established metrics of octopus welfare from the laboratory to these wild octopuses. In addition to observing all of the stress measures, we also identified two previously unknown measures associated with decreased welfare: (1) a half white eye flash and (2) a half-and-half blotch body pattern. More than half of the individuals analyzed had arm loss, and almost half of the individuals had skin injuries. We also observed that irregular chromatophore expression and abnormal motor coordination were associated with interactions with fishermen. This is the first study to apply measures of welfare from the laboratory to wild octopuses. Our results may also aid in the identification of welfare measures for other wild invertebrates.

Realism in systematics through biogeographical consilience.

There is an overlooked gap between any phylogenetic hypothesis and the natural world shaped by historical evolutionary processes, since the main concern during phylogenetic analyses is solely the search for congruence among characters under a defined criterion. Given a scientific realistic view, however, phylogenetic hypotheses are scientific theories that try to depict the historical series of cladogenetic events among biological entities. In this sense, the challenge is to establish a form of measuring the degree of truthfulness of our phylogenetic hypotheses. Here, we advocate the use of consilient biogeographical hypotheses to recognize the biological meaning of a phylogenetic inference apart from its instrumentalist value. Our proposal is based on the assumption that robust biogeographical hypotheses allows us to be close to the real evolutionary history of taxa. © The Willi Hennig Society 2011.

[A life among insects and books: an interview with Nelson Papavero]. / Uma vida entre insetos e livros: entrevista com Nelson Papavero.

Nelson Papavero is one of the top representatives of Brazilian zoology. His decisive contributions to this science began in the second half of the twentieth century, when he started publishing in the areas of zoology, systematics, biogeography, and the history of science while also working at graduate courses and training teachers and students. He was key to the introduction of Hennig's phylogenetic systematics in Brazil and its chief advocate. His active participation in the creation of the Special Courses on Zoological Systematics within the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development and his work at numerous administrative posts which he held during his academic career were vital to the development of zoology and comparative biology in Brazil. His endeavors also reached into other Latin American countries, like Mexico and Argentina.

Comparing Phylogenetic Trees Side by Side Through iPhyloC, a New Interactive Web-Based Framework.

Current frameworks of side-by-side phylogenetic trees comparison face two issues: (1) accepting mainly binary trees as input and (2) assuming input trees having identical or highly overlapping taxa. However, cladistic comparative studies often lead with multiple nontotally resolved trees with nonidentical sets of taxa. We tackle these issues in this study, presenting the iPhyloC, an interactive web-based framework for comparing phylogenetic trees side by side. iPhyloC supports automatic identification of the common taxa in the input trees, comparison options between them, intuitive design, high usability, scalability to large trees, and cross-platform support. iPhyloC was tested using different trees and a supertree depicting the phylogenetic relationships within the insect order Diptera as examples.

Risk factors for delirium among SARS-CoV-2 positive veterans.

There have been increasing reports of atypical neuropsychological symptoms among patients hospitalized with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Although numerous pathophysiological mechanisms have been proposed to account for the association between COVID-19 and delirium, few studies have examined factors associated with its development and none have done so in the context of a veteran sample. The current study exploratorily examined demographic and medical variables that might be associated with delirium among a cohort of SARS-CoV-2 positive veterans. Demographic and medical data were extracted from the computerized patient records of 162 veterans who were admitted to a large southeastern Veterans Affairs hospital for COVID-19 complications between March 1, 2020 and April 20, 2020. At the zero-order level, age, a history of cardiovascular illness, length of stay, intensive care unit admission, initiation of new dialysis, and the development of new thromboembolic or cardiac findings were associated with delirium. However, when simultaneously examining the impact of these predictor variables in a logistic regression, only length of stay and new cardiac findings increased the odds of delirium. Findings highlight the importance of continued investigation into factors that may account for neuropsychiatric dysfunction among COVID-19 patients.

Data standardization of plant-pollinator interactions.

BACKGROUND: Animal pollination is an important ecosystem function and service, ensuring both the integrity of natural systems and human well-being. Although many knowledge shortfalls remain, some high-quality data sets on biological interactions are now available. The development and adoption of standards for biodiversity data and metadata has promoted great advances in biological data sharing and aggregation, supporting large-scale studies and science-based public policies. However, these standards are currently not suitable to fully support interaction data sharing. RESULTS: Here we present a vocabulary of terms and a data model for sharing plant-pollinator interactions data based on the Darwin Core standard. The vocabulary introduces 48 new terms targeting several aspects of plant-pollinator interactions and can be used to capture information from different approaches and scales. Additionally, we provide solutions for data serialization using RDF, XML, and DwC-Archives and recommendations of existing controlled vocabularies for some of the terms. Our contribution supports open access to standardized data on plant-pollinator interactions. CONCLUSIONS: The adoption of the vocabulary would facilitate data sharing to support studies ranging from the spatial and temporal distribution of interactions to the taxonomic, phenological, functional, and phylogenetic aspects of plant-pollinator interactions. We expect to fill data and knowledge gaps, thus further enabling scientific research on the ecology and evolution of plant-pollinator communities, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and the development of public policies. The proposed data model is flexible and can be adapted for sharing other types of interactions data by developing discipline-specific vocabularies of terms.

Prevalence and Factors Associated with Metabolic Syndrome in Patients at a Psychosocial Care Center: A Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome (MS) is associated with greater risk of morbimortality and it has high prevalence in people with mental illness. OBJECTIVE: Estimate the prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome (MS) and its associated factors in the patients of a Psychosocial Care Center (CAPS in Brazilian Portuguese) in the city of Salvador, state of Bahia, Brazil. METHOD: Cross-sectional study set at CAPS in the city of Salvador-Bahia between August 2019 and February 2020. MS was evaluated according to the National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III. In addition to descriptive statistics, gross and adjusted prevalence ratios were described. RESULTS: MS was found in 100 (35.2%) individuals, 116 (40.9%) were obese and 165 (58.1%) had increased waist circumference. Polypharmacy was identified in 63 (22.3%) patients and 243 (85.9%) used antipsychotics. Under gross evaluation, women (PR = 1.88; 95%CI: 1.35-2.63) and those who used antidepressants (PR = 1.41; 95%CI: 1.05-1.88) showed an association with MS. After logistic regression, depression (PR = 1.86; 95%CI: 1.38-2.51), acanthosis (PR = 1.50; 95%CI: 1.18-1.90), use of antipsychotics (PR = 1.88; 95%CI: 1.13-2.75), and hypertriglyceridemic waist (PR = 3.33; 95%CI: 2.48-4.46) were associated with MS. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of MS signals multimorbidity among individuals with mental disorders and suggests a need for clinical screening.

Discharges "Against Medical Advice" in Patients With Opioid-related Hospitalizations.

OBJECTIVES: We performed a descriptive analysis of patient and treatment characteristics in premature discharges "against medical advice" (AMA) in a cohort of patients with opioid-related hospitalizations. METHODS: We abstracted data from 1152 opioid related hospitalizations of 928 adult patients in a large academic health system. Using electronic health record data, hospitalizations were categorized as AMA or conventional discharge (CD). To determine differences between AMA and CD regarding treatment characteristics, Fisher exact test, t tests, ANOVA, and logistic regression were performed. RESULTS: 74 / 1152 (6%) of opioid-related hospitalizations were discharged AMA. Hospitalizations that resulted in AMA discharge had shorter median length of stay (AMA vs CD 3.5 vs 5.5 days, P < 0.001) and received fewer of any type of opioid agonist treatment (AMA vs CD 73% vs 84%, P = 0.03). Although the number of hospitalizations in which methadone was administered did not differ between the AMA and CD groups, hospitalizations that resulted in AMA had more dose reductions and lesser quantities of methadone overall before discharge. Buprenorphine use was low overall in AMA and CD (0% and 2.1%, respectively). CONCLUSION: In this sample of opioid related hospitalizations, admissions that resulted in AMA discharge had fewer opioid agonist administrations and lower methadone dosing. These findings support efforts to initiate opioid agonist therapy during hospital admissions, and further studies should determine whether this practice mitigates AMA discharges.