Collaborative Research: Reconstructing the Early Evolution of the Bees and the History of Bee/Angiosperm Relationships

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A grant has been awarded to Dr. Bryan N. Danforth of Cornell University and Dr. Sedonia D. Sipes of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale to investigate the systematic relationships among bees, and the history of interactions between bees and flowering plants. Bees are a large group of insects ( ~20,000 species) whose history is intertwined with that of flowering plants. Today, bees are the most important pollinators of many of the world's food crops. Additionally, many wild plants depend upon bee pollinators for reproduction; thus bees play an important role in maintaining plant biodiversity. Yet, little is known about the earliest bees, or about the early flowering plants they may have pollinated, because all known bee fossils are either relatively recent in age, or are of highly advanced rather than primitive species. Moreover, the relationships among the seven families of bees are unclear from the study of their morphology alone. Danforth and Sipes propose to 1) reconstruct the relationships among the bees, with emphasis on the most primitive taxa (the "short-tongued" bees), using DNA sequences from three genes combined with morphological data. Additionally the investigators will use the DNA data in a model-based approach to estimate dates of key events in the history of the bees, and relate these dates to angiosperm history as recorded in the fossil record. This project will expand our understanding of the relationships and classification of the most important pollinators of flowering plants (bees), and will have implications for crop pollination, biodiversity, and conservation. This project will provide educational and research training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at both SIUC and Cornell University. Students involved with the project will gain broadly applicable experience in basic molecular biology as well as training in the specific fields of insect systematics and pollination ecology. Additionally, the award will provide professional-level training for a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell.