"Molecular phylogeny of the stingless bees"
- Stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini) are found worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australia and South America, but are most diverse and numerous in the Neotropics, where they are among the most conspicuous and important pollinators. Their obligate association with tropical habitats distinguishes them from related honey bees (Apis), which survive most everywhere, and bumble bees (Bombus), which are mostly temperate.
Stingless bees are highly social bees, thus belonging to the less than 5% of the more than 20,000 species of bees which are social. A review of the literature on stingless bees reveals a fast growing interest in the diversity of this group, principally because they are the only other highly social group of bees, besides honey bees, and thus provide an alternative model of complex social behavior. They are also an ancient group, possibly Cretaceous, suggesting that highly social behavior is in turn an ancient complexity in bees. The evolution of a diversity of complex stingless bee language systems used for purposes of communicating the location of good food sources marks them as pivotal in elucidating the evolution of the dance language found in honey bees.
A comprehensive phylogeny of the stingless bees of which there is none to date, would provide the basis for tracing important features of behavioral evolution, including reproductive behavior of queens and workers and nest architecture.
The primary goal of this research is to obtain a strongly supported phylogeny of the world fauna of stingless bees. Accomplishing this goal will provide the necessary framework for better understanding the evolution of behavior in stingless bees and their relatives. A phylogeny would also elucidate their age of origin and ancestral distributions.
Specific objectives in this NSF funded research are to
Obtain complete DNA sequence datasets for five genes
Estimate the phylogeny
Estimate ancestral biogeographic distributions of major lineages
Estimate divergence times among the major lineages
