Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Bees are the most important pollinators in the world. Because of their high extinction risk, they also inform us about the state of the environment. Additionally, as species differ in habitat requirements (diet breadth, nest sites & materials, etc.) they can be used to monitor the effects of specific habitat changes. Although the western domesticated honey bee is the most commonly managed species, we now know that many of the other 20,400+ described species are often agriculturally more important. However, a major factor that impedes our use of bee diversity is the fact that their identification at any taxonomic level is extremely hard. Several issues contribute to identification challenges, including 1) morphological similarities among species, 2) absence/poor quality of identification tools, and 3) ongoing changes to their classifications (which can be annual at the generic level, and far too frequent even at the family level). Classifications should be based upon phylogenies, but there are large discrepancies between results based upon morphological and genetic data. Thus, our research objectives are to: 1) stabilize bee classification through a taxonomically dense total evidence phylogeny and use the results to 2) understand the geological/palaeoenvironmental /biogeographic events that led to current bee distributions and 3) develop and provide user-friendly identification tools. 1. Will involve use of our extensive collection which houses >35% of the world's bee species and >93% of the genera. Hundreds of morphological characteristics will be assessed, and we will generate hundreds to thousands of gene sequences from at least one member of each genus using recently developed methods that work even for minute pinned insects that were collected decades ago. It will provide a robust basis for a long-lasting classification. 2. The phylogeny resulting from objective 1 will be time calibrated permitting us to detect when particular geographic disjunctions originated. We will then be able to look for the geological or palaeoenvironmental events that coincide with the disjunctions. This work will be at the generic level for the bees of the world, species level for Chile. 3. Will involve augmenting the DNA barcode library for bees and generating image-driven, user-friendly identification guides for the bee genera of specific countries (eventually the whole world). These keys will be turned into freely available online apps that mimic computer games and will be culturally specific to the gaming style preferences in the target country/ies/ IMPACT. The global nature of our research attracts worldwide interest. The practical importance of generating user-friendly identification tools that can be cross-validated by morphology and DNA cannot be overstated. There is enormous need for this information throughout the world. The approaches we will develop should set the standard for identification procedures for any challenging group of organisms.