Phylogeny and evolution of the aculeate Hymenoptera

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With more than 50,000 species , aculeate Hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants and relatives) is a remarkably diverse group within the order, which has attracted evolutionary and phylogenetic studies due to its diversity and its complex behaviors, including high sociality, since a long time. Nevertheless, the phylogeny is not sufficiently clarified and understood. Both recent molecular and morphological studies have usually covered the entire Hymenoptera and suffer from an insufficient taxon sampling in the aculeate branch of the Hymenoptera tree. Most morphological characters have been extracted from the literature and are often not properly documented. The project aims at the creation of a comprehensive, high-quality data set for the reconstruction of the phylogenetic relationships within Aculeata. Emphasis is on taxa, which are putatively paraphyletic or at least their phylogenetic status questionable. Characters will be emphasized, which have been neglected in previous studies or whose homology is dubious. The basis of the current project is a substantial taxon-sampling, innovative morphological techniques (e.g., 3D-reconstruction and micro-CT, in combination with SEM), and finally an innovative, detailled documentation of characters. All morphological data will be connected to the US-project Hymenoptera Anatomy Ontology (HAO), which is associated with Morphbank. This allows to submit and store all data and images in appropriate database structures. On the basis of the resulting, comprehensive data matrix, the phylogeny of the Aculeata will be reconstructed. On the basis of the resulting hypotheses, evolutionary scenarios of character evolution will be discussed.