Oviposition Behavior of the Stingless Bees (Apidae, Meliponinae) XVI. Trigona (Tetragonula) carbonaria Endemic to Australia, with a Highly Integrated Oviposition Process

The oviposition behavior of an Australian stingless bee Trigona (Tetragonula) carbonaria differs from that of so far observed Malesian consubgeners (T. laeviceps, T. minangkabau, T. pagdeni, T. fuscobalteata) in the following features : (1) synchronous (not successive) cell construction, (2) exclusively (not facultatively) batched oviposition process, (3) synchronous (not successive) food provisioning in brood cells, (4) generalized (not localized) agitation at food provisioning, and (5) cell operculation neatly (not obscurely) differentiated into rotation and sidework subphases, all rather similar to some Neotropical taxa such as Nannotrigona. These features form a highly integrated oviposition sequence, in contrast to the simpler (probably disintegrated) sequence in the other observed consubgeners. This suggests, together with its typically combed cell arrangement (not clustered as in the other consubgeners), the ancestral nature of T. carbonaria within the subgenus Tetragonula. On the other hand, this species shares two important features with the other observed consubgeners : simple queen-worker behavioral interactions and the absence of worker ovipositions under the queenright state, both probably are derived (degenerated) features.