CiteULike CiteULike
Delicious Delicious
Connotea Connotea

Citation for Study 2121

About Citation title: "Patterns of host-plant choice in bees of the genus Chelostoma: the constraint hypothesis of host-range evolution in bees".
About This study was previously identified under the legacy study ID S2125 (Status: Published).

Citation

Sedivy C., Praz C., M?ller A., Widmer A., & Dorn S. 2008. Patterns of host-plant choice in bees of the genus Chelostoma: the constraint hypothesis of host-range evolution in bees. Evolution, null.

Authors

  • Sedivy C.
  • Praz C.
  • M?ller A.
  • Widmer A.
  • Dorn S.

Abstract

To trace the evolution of host-plant choice in bees of the genus Chelostoma (Megachilidae), we assessed the host plants of 35 Palearctic, North American and Indomalayan species by microscopically analyzing the pollen loads of 634 females and reconstructed their phylogenetic history based on four genes and a morphological data set, applying both parsimony and Bayesian methods. All species except two were found to be strict pollen specialists at the level of plant family or genus. These oligolectic species together exploit the flowers of eight different plant orders which are distributed among all major angiosperm lineages. Based on ancestral state reconstruction, we found that oligolecty is the ancestral state in Chelostoma and that the two pollen generalists evolved from oligolectic ancestors. The distinct pattern of host broadening in these two polylectic species, the highly conserved floral specializations within the different clades, the exploitation of unrelated hosts with a striking floral similarity as well as a recent report on larval performance on non-host pollen in two Chelostoma species clearly suggest that floral host choice is physiologically or neurologically constrained in bees of the genus Chelostoma. Based on this finding, we propose a new hypothesis on the evolution of host range in bees.

About this resource

  • Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S2121
  • Other versions: Download Reconstructed NEXUS File Nexus Download NeXML File NeXML
  • Show BibTeX reference
  • Show RIS reference