The Evolution of Parasociality and Nesting Behaviors in Pompilidae (Hymenoptera): Using Phylogenetics to Propose New Hypotheses of Behavioral Evolution

确定进化关系最引人注目的应用之一是解释复杂行为的进化。蜘蛛蜂表现出与筑巢相关的各种行为，这些行为在过去已经被假设为进化场景，但从未进行过测试。这个项目的具体目标是重建和修订蜘蛛蜂的更高级别的分类，为筑巢行为如何演变提出新的方案，并维护一个组织该项目信息的网站。进化关系和亲缘关系将从形态、行为和分子数据中估计出来。这一结果可能会挑战现有的关于一般社会行为演变的范式，以及特别是关于蜂巢的现有范式，这可能会为大学教科书中呈现的信息提供科学严谨性，或修改信息。这项研究也很重要，因为它将在形态和分子方法方面培训本科生和研究生，并将有助于将分类学信息从退休的专家转移到年轻一代的系统学家手中。该项目还将产生非专家可以访问的产品。制作的交互式密钥将使非专家能够识别蜘蛛蜂，而该网站将对非专家可访问，并将成为从高中到专业水平的有用教学工具

One of the most compelling applications of determining evolutionary relationships is to explain the evolution of complex behaviors. Spider wasps exhibit a variety of behaviors associated with nesting for which evolutionary scenarios have been postulated in the past, but never tested. Specific objectives of this project are to reconstruct and revise the higher-level classification of spider wasps, to propose new scenarios for how nesting behaviors may have evolved, and to maintain a website that organizes information on the project. Evolutionary relationships and relatedness will be estimated from morphological, behavioral, and molecular data. The results are likely to challenge existing paradigms concerning the evolution of social behaviors in general, as well as wasp nesting specifically, which will likely lend scientific rigor to, or revise, information presented in college textbooks. This study also is important because it will train undergraduate and graduate students in morphological and molecular methods, and will help transfer taxonomic information from a retired expert to younger generations of systematists. The project will also result in products that will be accessible to non-experts. The interactive keys produced will enable non-experts to identify spider wasps, while the website will be approachable to non-experts and will be a useful teaching tool from the high school to professional levels