Cladistic analysis of self‐grooming indicates a single origin of eusociality in corbiculate bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Abstract

Behavioural traits have been used extensively in recent years as an important character source for making phylogenetic inferences. The phylogenetic positions of the members of the Apini subtribe are increasingly being debated, and new characters must be examined. We analysed the presence and absence of certain behavioural patterns, as well as the sequences of some of these patterns, to generate 79 characters. Eleven species comprised the ingroup, and Xylocopini comprised the outgroup. Parsimony analysis showed that the most parsimonious tree was (Euglossina(Bombina(Apina+Meliponina))). This topology is consistent with most studies that use morphological data and the few that use behavioural data, which suggests that advanced eusociality arose only once in a common ancestor of the clade Apina plus Meliponina; however, this hypothesis is inconsistent with our molecular data. Thus we considered behavioural, molecular, and morphological data and recovered the same topology, in which eusociality has a single origin in corbiculate bees.

Reproductive regulation in an orchid bee: social context, fertility and chemical signalling

“…However, recent phylogenies indicate that eusociality evolved only once in the common ancestor of the corbiculate apids, and was subsequently lost in the orchid bees (Canevazzi & Noll, 2014;Cardinal & Danforth, 2011). The results of the present study provide new insights, and indicate that elements of eusociality are well defined in some euglossine bee species.…”

“…Previous studies have speculated that solitary behaviour in the orchid bees would be an evolutionary reversion, with some Euglossa species retaining some eusocial traits (Cardinal & Danforth, 2011). Other reports, however, suggest that eusociality was inherited from a eusocial ancestor to all corbiculates (Canevazzi & Noll, 2014;Chavarría & Carpenter, 1994;Noll, 2002;Zucchi, Sakagami, & Camargo, 1969). Therefore, the study of behavioural biology of orchid bees can illuminate the interpretations of the evolution of eusociality in corbiculate bees.…”

Investigating Eusociality in Bees while Trusting the Uncertainty

“…In part, this might be explained by the extinction of various lineages of corbiculate bees since the Cretaceous (e.g., Engel, 2001a, b;Engel et al, 2009) and possibly by rapid divergence among some lineages. Choice of outgroups is a sensitive issue when working with corbiculate bee relationships (e.g., Canevazzi & Noll, 2014), which is illustrated by the unstable placement of different lineages of Apidae near or within the corbiculate clade (Table 1 of Cardinal & Packer, 2007). Finally, it is worth speculating the rooting is also an issue when selecting one of the alternative rooted tree topologies (right column of Fig 2) from one of the unrooted trees shown on the left of the same figure. Character data will support one of the three topologies on the left, whereas rooting (more specifically, the placement of the root-node) will be decisive for the proposal of one rooted tree-topology as the most likely scenario for the evolutionary connections among the four corbiculate-bee lineages.…”

A primitive honey bee from the Middle Miocene deposits of southeastern Yunnan, China (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

“…The putatively basalmost tribe of corbiculate bees, the Euglossini (orchid bees), are solitary or communal, with a few examples of primitive eusocial behavior in some species (Boff et al 2015; Andrade et al 2016). Relationships among these tribes have been controversial, although most evidence converges on a Darwinian null-hypothesis supporting a single origin of eusociality in the common ancestor of Bombini + Meliponini + Apini, and a single origin of the highly eusocial grade in the common ancestor of Meliponini + Apini (Michener 1990; Schultz et al 1999, 2001; Engel 2001a; Noll 2002; Cardinal and Packer 2007; Canevazzi and Noll 2015; Porto et al 2016, in press). Alternatively, some molecular evidence has placed meliponines as sister to bombines (e.g., Cameron and Mardulyn 2001; Kawakita et al 2008; Rodriguez-Serrano et al 2012), although in the most recent such analysis data from Euglossini were excluded (Kwong et al 2017), and the potential impact of excluding one of the four surviving corbiculate tribes for driving spurious results has not been explored.…”