Estimation of heritabilities for some morphological characters in bumblebees, Bombus terrestris L.

As with honey bees, which are model social insect species, the tongue length, wing, and hind leg of bumblebees are morphological characteristics that affect pollination performance. It is necessary to know pedigree records to estimate the heritabilities of these characteristics. In this present study, some morphological characteristics (tongue length, wing, and hindleg traits) of Bombus terrestris worker samples, which three generations pedigree records were known, were measured and heritabilities of these characteristics was estimated. In the study, 43, 115, and 42 colonies were used for the first, the second and the third generations. A total of 600 workers bee samples were collected from 200 colonies (three workers from each colony) and 13 morphological characteristics were measured for each worker bee sample. Results showed that the heritabilities of some morphological characteristics affecting the pollination performance of B. terrestris were estimated for worker weight 0.48  0.045, tongue length as 0.48 ± 0.045, forewing length as 0.50 ± 0.045, forewing width as 0.48 ± 0.045, hindwing length as 0.49 ± 0.045, hindwing width as 0.47 ± 0.045, wing index as 0.42 ± 0.046, hind leg length as 0.46 ± 0.045, femur length as 0.30 ± 0.046, tibia length as 0.49 ± 0.045, metatarsus length as 0.42 ± 0.046, metatarsus width as 0.43 ± 0.046, and metatarsus index as 0.40 ± 0.046.