Temporal changes in stingless bee associated microbiota

This is a longitudinal study on six managed colonies of the stingless bee Melipona quadrifasciata, aiming to characterise changes in the gut microbiome of foragers (five bees per colony per month) during the summer (January until April) in Southern Brazil. We focus on the causes of mortality that annually occur in populations of this stingless bee by the end of summer (normally beginning of March). Metabarcoding was performed using 16S (bacteria) and ITS2 (eukaryotes) as genetic markers.