Figure 2. Non-linear Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) ordination plots showing the differentiation of honey samples grouped into two convex hulls to the bee tribe. The results show that SBH were divided in two discrete groups with little overlap due to one sample of each group that differed from the compositional profile of its tribe.
Our chemodiversity analysis showed that SBH had a significantly higher richness, evenness, disparity and functional diversity than honey bees according to all the indexes assessed investigated (Supplementary Fig. 2). Non-sugar compounds represented 7% of the composition of samples from honey bees while these represented 19% in SBH composition, mainly fermentation markers. Among the three main fermentation markers, lactic (X² = 136.87, df = 1, p-value < 2.2e-16) and acetic acid (X² = 155.64, df = 1, p-value < 2.2e-16) levels were significantly higher in SBH while ethanol was present in equal concentration.