Systematics and Evolution of the Apoidea

蜜蜂是世界上最重要的传粉媒介，它们的生物学引起了农业学家、蜂蜜业、行为学家和社会结构研究者的极大兴趣。查尔斯·米切纳（Charles Michener）是世界上研究蜜蜂的主要权威之一，他提出了一项关于世界蜜蜂分类和祖先-后代关系的五年综合研究。麦切纳是唯一有资格总结目前对蜜蜂生物学和进化的理解的人，因为蜜蜂可能在中生代与黄蜂分道扬镳。除了对家族和部落进行全面的分类外，米切纳还将使用分支学方法构建系统发育假说，并为非专业人士制定识别钥匙。该项目将使我们对蜜蜂生物学和进化的理解达到一个完整和清晰的新水平。它将为几代人的纯蜜蜂和应用蜜蜂研究奠定基础。

Bees are the most important pollinating agent in the world, and their biology is of intense interest to agriculturists, the honey industry, behaviorists and investigators into social structures. Charles Michener is one of the world's leading authorities on bees, and he has proposed a five-year synthesis of the classification and ancestor-descendant relationships among the bees of the world. Michener is uniquely qualified to summarize the present understanding of the biology and evolution of bees since their probable divergence from wasps in the Mesozoic Era. In addition to producing a comprehensive classification of families and tribes, Michener will construct phylogenetic hypotheses using cladistic methods, and will formulate identification keys for non-specialists. The proposed project will bring our understanding of bee biology and evolution to a new level of completeness and clarity. It will serve as a foundation for pure and applied bee research for generations.