2012/08/30 by Bryan N. Danforth, Sophie Cardinal, Christophe Praz +2 · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Plant and animal studies #Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior #Insect and Pesticide Research
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev-ento-120811-153633
openalex publication_date 2012/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Our understanding of bee phylogeny has improved over the past fifteen years as a result of new data, primarily nucleotide sequence data, and new methods, primarily model-based methods of phylogeny reconstruction. Phylogenetic studies based on single or, more commonly, multilocus data sets have helped resolve the placement of bees within the superfamily Apoidea; the relationships among the seven families of bees; and the relationships among bee subfamilies, tribes, genera, and species. In addition, molecular phylogenies have played an important role in inferring evolutionary patterns and processes in bees. Phylogenies have provided the comparative framework for understanding the evolution of host-plant associations and pollen specialization, the evolution of social behavior, and the evolution of parasitism. In this paper, we present an overview of significant discoveries in bee phylogeny based primarily on the application of molecular data. We review the phylogenetic hypotheses family-by-family and then describe how the new phylogenetic insights have altered our understanding of bee biology.