Lanthanomelissa has an uncertain taxonomic history, and was formerly treated either as an independent genus or as a subgenus of Chalepogenus. It is endemic to southern South American grasslands, an endangered and poorly known environment. We aimed to understand the origin of these bees in time and space, the influence of Quaternary climatic fluctuations on their current distribution, and the possible link to the southern South American grasslands’ history. We inferred phylogenetic relationships in Lanthanomelissa using 37 specimens from all six species and 3430 nucleotides of three mitochondrial and two nuclear genes and estimated divergence times and ancestral geographic range. We modeled species distribution for the current and two past climatic scenarios (LIG, ~120 kya, and LGM, ~21 kya), performing an ensemble with three algorithms in a dataset of 192 georeferenced occurrence points using 19 WorldClim bioclimatic variables. The results support the monophyly of the genus and taxonomic changes, including the species Lanthanomelissa parva n. comb., and the treatment of the goeldianus group of Chalepogenus as the genus Lanthanella. Lanthanomelissa originated at the Oligocene–Miocene border in the Chacoan–Pampean region, and the glacial–interglacial models indicate expansion in the Last Glacial Maximum and retraction in the Last Interglacial. This origin was approximately synchronized with their exclusive floral host, Sisyrinchium (Iridaceae). The diversification of Lanthanomelissa supports the estimated austral expansion of the ancestral southern grasslands in South America before the origin of Cerrado during the late Miocene. Expansion and retraction in distribution during the last glacial–interglacial indicate grasslands distributional shifts through climate cooling and warming periods.
Lanthanomelissa is a controversial taxonomic group of bees that was treated as subgenus of Chalepogenus or an independent genus. All of its species are endemic to the south-eastern grasslands of South America, an endangered and still poorly known environment. We aimed to understand the origin of this group of bees in time and space as well as the influence of Quaternary climatic fluctuations on its current distribution and possible link to the history of the Southern Grasslands. We inferred phylogenetic relationships of Lanthanomelissa species using 37 terminals and 3430 nucleotides of three mitochondrial and two nuclear markers and estimated divergence times and ancestral geographic range. We performed an ensemble with the algorithms SVM, Maxent, and Random Forest in a dataset of 192 georeferenced occurrence points using 19 WorldClim bioclimatic variables to analyse species distribution during the current and two past climatic scenarios (LIG, ∼120 kya and LGM, ∼21 kya). The results support the monophyly of the genus and taxonomic changes including the species Lanthanomelissa parva n. comb. on Lanthanomelissa, and the treatment of the goeldianus group of Chalepogenus as the genus Lanthanella. The genus originated at the Oligocene-Miocene border in the Chacoan-Pampean region, and the glacial-interglacial models indicated expansion in Last Glacial Maximum and retraction in Last Interglacial. Expansion and retraction of Lanthanomelissa distribution in the last glacial-interglacial indicated grasslands distributional shifts during periods of climate cooling and warming. The diversification of Lanthanomelissa supported the estimated expansion of southern grasslands in South America concurrently with the origin of Cerrado during the late Miocene. Their origin was approximately synchronized with their exclusive floral host, Sisyrinchium (Iridaceae).
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