Subgeneric classification and biology of the leafcutter and dauber bees (genus Megachile Latreille) of the western Palearctic (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Megachilidae)

Praz, Christophe

doi:10.3897/jhr.55.11255

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 45 publications

(53 reference statements)

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“…Finally, Trunz et al (2016) proposed to synonymize Grosapis and Eumegachile under Megachile s.str., and Paracella Michener under Anodonteutricharaea Tkalců, the order of the latter synonym corrected by Praz (2017). Such taxonomic changes might be correct but we do not recommend following these changes at this time because Eumegachile only rendered Megachile s.str.…”

Section: Journal Of Melittology 54mentioning

confidence: 93%

Morphological phylogeny of Megachilini and the evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

2019

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A unique feature among bees is the ability of some species of Megachile Latreille s.l. to cut and process fresh leaves for nest construction. The presence of a razor between the female mandibular teeth (interdental laminae) to facilitate leaf-cutting (LC) is a morphological novelty that might have triggered a subsequent diversification in this group. However, we have a limited understanding of the phylogeny of this group despite the large number of described species and the origins and patterns of variations of this mandibular structure are unknown. Herein, using a cladistic analysis of adult external morphological characters, we explored the relationships of all genera of Megachilini and the more than 50 subgenera of Megachile s.l. We coded 272 characters for 8 outgroups and 114 ingroup species. Depending on the weighting scheme (equal or implied weighting), our parsimony analyses suggested the monophyly of Megachile s.l. and that either Noteriades Cockerell or the clade Coelioxys Latreille + Radoszkowskiana Popov is the extant sister group of all other Megachilini. In addition, we conducted Bayesian total-evidence tip-dating analyses to examine other possible hypotheses of relationships and patterns of variation of the interdental lamina. Our analyses suggest that interdental laminae developed asynchronicaly from two different structures in the mandible, and differ in their phenotypic plasticity. Character correlation tests using phylogenetic pairwise comparisons indicated that the presence of interdental lamina is not associated with head size, mandible size and shape, and pubescence on the adductor interspace. We discuss the implications of our findings for the classification of Megachilini and the development of novel evolutionary, ecological, and functional hypotheses on this behavior. New taxa established are Pseudoheriadini Gonzalez & Engel, new tribe, Ochreriadini Gonzalez & Engel, new tribe, Cremnomegachile Gonzalez & Engel, new genus, Rozenapis Gonzalez & Engel, new genus, and Saucrochile Gonzalez & Engel, new genus, along with the following new combinations: Cremnomegachile dolichosoma (Benoist), new combination, Rozenapis ignita (Smith), new combination, and Saucrochile heriadiformis (Smith), new combination.

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Section: Journal Of Melittology 54mentioning

confidence: 93%

Morphological phylogeny of Megachilini and the evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

2019

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“…Finally, Trunz et al (2016) proposed to synonymize Grosapis Mitchell and Eumegachile Friese under Megachile s.str., and Paracella Michener under Anodoneutricharaea Tkalců, the order of the latter synonym corrected by Praz (2017). We do not follow these changes because Eumegachile only rendered Megachile s.str.…”

Section: Classificatory Proposalsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) as inferred from total-evidence tip-dating analyses

Betancourt

Gustafson

Engel

2019

Preprint

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A unique feature among bees is the ability of some species of Megachile s.l. to cut and process fresh leaves for nest construction. The presence of razors between the female mandibular teeth (interdental laminae) to facilitate leaf-cutting (LC) is a morphological novelty that might have triggered a subsequent diversification in this group. However, we have a limited understanding of the evolutionary origins of this behavior and associated structures. Herein, we use total-evidence tip-dating analyses to infer the origin of LC bees and patterns of variation of interdental laminae. Our datasets included five nuclear genes, representatives of all fossil taxa, 80% of the extant generic-level diversity of Megachilidae, and the full range of generic and subgeneric diversity of Megachilini. Our analyses support the notion of a recent origin of LC bees (15-25 Ma), casting doubts on Eocene trace fossils attributed to these bees. We demonstrate that interdental laminae developed asynchronicaly from two different structures in the mandible (teeth or fimbrial ridge), and differ in their phenotypic plasticity. Based on the phylogenetic results, we propose robust classificatory solutions to long-standing challenges in the systematics of Megachilidae. We discuss the implications of our findings as a foundational framework to develop novel evolutionary, ecological, and functional hypotheses on this behavior.

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“…These specimens are listed with the acronyms MP and MS respectively. The identification keys used were by Osytshnjuk et al (1978), Romankova (1995), Banaszak and Romasenko (2001), Amiet et al (2004), Aguib et al (2010), Proshchalykin (2013a), and Praz (2017). Comparative material from various Palaearctic regions in the reference collection of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, ZISP) was studied.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Megachilid bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) of the forest-steppe and steppe zones of the West Siberian Plain to the eastward of Irtysh River

Byvaltsev¹,

Belova²,

Danilov³

et al. 2018

Far East. entomol.

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Subgeneric classification and biology of the leafcutter and dauber bees (genus Megachile Latreille) of the western Palearctic (Hymenoptera, Apoidea, Megachilidae)

Cited by 21 publications

References 45 publications

Morphological phylogeny of Megachilini and the evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

Morphological phylogeny of Megachilini and the evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae)

Evolution of leaf-cutter behavior in bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) as inferred from total-evidence tip-dating analyses

Megachilid bees (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) of the forest-steppe and steppe zones of the West Siberian Plain to the eastward of Irtysh River

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