A supermatrix phylogeny of the world’s bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila)

Abstract

AbstractThe increasing availability of large phylogenies has provided new opportunities to study the evolution of species traits, their origins and diversification, and biogeography; yet, with the exception of butterflies, taxonomically well-curated phylogenies are currently lacking for major insect groups. Bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) are a large group of insect pollinators that have a worldwide distribution, and a wide variation in ecology, morphology, and life-history traits, including sociality. For these reasons, as well as their major economic importance as pollinators, numerous molecular phylogenetic studies of relationships between and/or within families or genera for this group have been published. We used publicly available sequence data, a family-level phylogenomic backbone, and ultra-conserved element (UCE) data, reconciled to a taxonomic database, to produce a dated phylogeny for bees. The phylogeny comprises 4651 bee species, representing 23% of species and 86% of genera. At family, subfamily, and tribe levels, the data were robust, but between and within some genera relationships remain uncertain. In addition, most of the species with available sequence data are geographically distributed in North America and Europe, highlighting gaps that should be considered in future research to improve our understanding of bee evolution and phylogeography. We provide a summary of the current state of molecular data available and its gaps, and discuss the advantages and limitations of this bee supermatrix phylogeny (available online atbeetreeoflife.org), which may enable new insights into long standing questions about evolutionary drivers in bees, and potentially insects.HighlightsBee supermatrix phylogeny constructed with public and published sequence data.Includes 23% of currently recognised species and covers 86% of genera.Provides a summary of remaining gaps in bee phylogenetics.Available online at beetreeoflife.org, with subsetting tool to facilitate comparative analyses.