@ARTICLE{TreeBASE2Ref15192, author = {Bryan N. Danforth and Sedonia S. Sipes and Jennifer Fang and Se?n G. Brady}, title = {The history of early bee diversification based on five genes plus morphology}, year = {2006}, keywords = {}, doi = {}, url = {}, pmid = {}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America}, volume = {}, number = {}, pages = {}, abstract = {Bees, the largest (> 16,000 species) and most important radiation of pollinating insects, originated in early to mid-Cretaceous roughly in synchrony with the angiosperms (flowering plants). Understanding the diversification of the bees and the co-evolutionary history of bees and angiosperms requires a well-supported phylogeny of the bees (as well as the angiosperms). We reconstructed a robust phylogeny of the bees at the family and subfamily level using a data set of five genes (4299 nucleotide sites) plus morphology (109 characters). The molecular data set included protein-coding (elongation factor-1?, RNA polymerase II, LW rhodopsin) as well as ribosomal (28S and 18S) nuclear gene data. Analyses of both the DNA data set and the DNA+morphology data set by parsimony and Bayesian methods yielded a single, well-supported family-level tree topology that places Melittidae as a paraphyletic group at the base of the phylogeny of bees. This topology (Melittidae-LT basal) is significantly better than a previously proposed alternative topology (Colletidae basal) based both on likelihood and Bayesian methods. Our results have important implications for understanding the early diversification, historical biogeography, host-plant evolution, and fossil record of bees. The earliest branches of bee phylogeny include lineages that are predominantly host-plant specialists, suggesting that host plant specificity is an ancestral trait in bees. Our results suggest an African origin for bees because the earliest branches of the tree include predominantly African lineages. These results also help explain the predominance of Melittidae, Apidae, and Megachilidae among the earliest fossil bees.} }

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