Dissertation Research: Phylogeny of Orchid Bees (Hymenoptera: Euglossini), the Evolutionary Significance of Fragrance Gathering, and Patterns of Orchid Host Use.

了解授粉系统对于研究昆虫和植物之间共同进化的生物学家以及对授粉者为作物施肥所提供的生态服务感兴趣的农学家来说至关重要。协同进化授粉系统的一个经典例子是兰花和Euglossine蜜蜂之间的相互作用。Euglossini部落包括约200种金属色的快速飞行昆虫，栖息在热带中美洲和南美洲的热带雨林中。 它们的共同名字，“兰花蜂”，来自于雄蜂作为数百种兰花授粉者的密切联系。雄性收集并储存兰花的香味在专门的腿口袋里，然后在求爱期间用这些来引诱雌性。在采集香味的同时，雄蜂通过一种迷人的机制使花朵受精。与大多数开花植物不同，兰花不产生松散的花粉粒，而是将花粉包装在一个紧凑的物质中，称为花粉粒（pl。花粉）。花粉器的底部有一个粘性表面，根据兰花的种类，它附着在蜜蜂身体的不同部位。 一只雄性蜜蜂将花粉从一朵花带到另一朵花，将花粉粘在每一个物种身上适当匹配的位置。这项研究将通过绘制双方的地理分布图，分析DNA序列以重建它们的进化树，并表征雄蜂收集的化学气味以了解这些气味如何被用作特定的交配信号，来调查这些蜜蜂及其相关兰花的进化。这项研究将阐明蜜蜂的进化如何影响兰花的进化，反之亦然。它还将展示收集香味的罕见行为如何影响不同种类蜜蜂的进化。更广泛地说，它将调查这样的系统，其中紧密的互惠关系将物种群体联系在一起，是否可以共同进化，影响彼此的轨迹并促进生物多样性的起源。通过使用多种方法，这项研究将连接传统上独立的科学领域，如化学生态学和分子系统学。研究结果将有助于我们理解互利互动的演变，这是授粉生物学的基础，在大多数农业系统中至关重要的领域。一名研究生和几名本科生将接受昆虫学，分子生物遗传学和行为生态学的培训。兰花蜜蜂分布在中美洲和南美洲，这里描述的实地工作和实验室合作将促进更大的国际交流。研究结果将产生多样化的分子、化学和行为数据集，这些数据集将通过开放访问的网络资源提供给未来的研究人员和教育工作者。最后，这项研究将有助于实现更广泛的理解自然世界及其保护的目标。

Understanding pollination systems is of central importance to biologists investigating the coevolution between insects and plants, and agriculturalists interested in ecological services provided by pollinators that fertilize their crops. A classic example of a coevolved pollination system is the interaction between orchids and euglossine bees. The tribe Euglossini comprises ~200 species of metallic-colored, fast flying insects that inhabit the rainforests of tropical Central and South America. Their common name, 'orchid bee,' derives from the close association that the male bees have as pollinators of hundreds of species of orchids. The males collect and store fragrances from orchids in specialized leg pockets, and they later use these to seduce females during courtship. While collecting fragrances, male bees fertilize flowers by a fascinating mechanism. Orchids, unlike most flowering plants, do not produce loose pollen grains, but instead package their pollen in a compact mass called a pollinium (pl. pollinia). The pollinium has a sticky surface at its base that adheres to different parts of the bee's body, depending on the species of orchid. A male bee carries pollinia from one flower to another, fertilizing each species with pollinia stuck to the appropriately matched location on its body. This research will investigate the evolution of these bees and their associated orchids by mapping the geographic distributions of both partners, analyzing DNA sequences to reconstruct their evolutionary trees, and characterizing chemical scents collected by male bees to understand how these are used as specific mating signals. The study will elucidate how the evolution of the bees affected the evolution of the orchids, and vice versa. It will also show how the rare behavior of fragrance gathering affected the evolution of different species of bees. More broadly, it will investigate whether systems like this, in which tight mutualisms bond groups of species together, can coevolve, affecting each other's trajectories and spurring the origin of biological diversity.By using multiple approaches, this study will bridge traditionally separate scientific fields such as chemical ecology and molecular systematics. The results will contribute to our understanding of the evolution of mutualistic interactions that are the basis of pollination biology, a field of critical importance in most agricultural systems. One graduate student and several undergraduates will receive training in entomology, molecular phylogenetics, and behavioral ecology. Orchid bees are distributed throughout Central and South America, and the fieldwork and laboratory collaborations described here will foster greater international communication. The results will generate diverse molecular, chemical and behavioral datasets that will be made available to future researchers and educators via open-access web-based resources. Finally, the research will contribute toward the broader goal of understanding of the natural world and its conservation.