The
superfamily Apoidea is a major group (of over 30 000 species) within the
Hymenoptera, which includes two traditionally recognized lineages, the
"sphecoid" wasps, and the
bees. Molecular phylogeny demonstrates that the bees arose from within the traditional "
Crabronidae", so that grouping is
paraphyletic
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
, and this has led to a reclassification to produce monophyletic families.
[Manuela Sann, Oliver Niehuis, Ralph S. Peters, Christoph Mayer, Alexey Kozlov, Lars Podsiadlowski, Sarah Bank, Karen Meusemann, Bernhard Misof, Christoph Bleidorn and Michael Ohl (2018) Phylogenomic analysis of Apoidea sheds new light on the sister group of bees. ''BMC Evolutionary Biology'' 18:71. doi:10.1186/s12862-018-1155-8]
Diagnostic features
Apoid wasps and bees have several traits in common:
[O'Neill, K.M. (2008). Apoid Wasps (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Spheciformes). In: Capinera, J.L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Entomology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6359-6_10300 ]
* The posterior (back) edge of the
pronotum (pronotal lobe) is separated from the
tegula
* In dorsal view (from above), the
pronotum is short and broadly U-shaped;
* In dorsal view, a “propodeal triangle” at the posterior of the
mesonotum;
* The hind basitarsus is longer than the other
tarsomeres of the hind leg.
Nomenclature
Bees appear in recent classifications to be a specialized lineage of "crabronid" wasps that switched to the use of
pollen
Pollen is a powdery substance produced by most types of flowers of seed plants for the purpose of sexual reproduction. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced Gametophyte#Heterospory, microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm ...
and
nectar as
larval food, rather than
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
prey; this makes the traditional "Crabronidae" a
paraphyletic
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
group. Accordingly, bees and sphecoids are now all grouped together in a single superfamily, and the older available name is "Apoidea" rather than "Sphecoidea" (which, like Spheciformes, has been used in the past, but also defined a
paraphyletic
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
group and has been abandoned).
As bees (not including their wasp ancestors) are still considered a
monophyletic
In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria:
# the grouping contains its own most recent co ...
group, they are given a grouping between superfamily and family to unify all bees, Anthophila.
[ Engel, M.S. (2005)]
Family-group names for bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea)
''American Museum Novitates'' 3476: 1–33.
Phylogeny
This
phylogenetic tree is based on Sann ''et al.'', 2018, which used
phylogenomics to demonstrate that both the bees (
Anthophila) and the
Sphecidae arose from within the former "Crabronidae," which is therefore
paraphyletic
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...
, and which they suggested should be split into several families; the former family
Heterogynaidae nests in
Nyssonini within the
Bembicidae, as defined by these authors.
These findings differ in several details from studies published by two other sets of authors in 2017, though all three studies demonstrate a paraphyletic "Crabronidae."
References
Further reading
*
*
Michener, C.D. (2000). ''The Bees of the World''. Johns Hopkins University Press.
External links
All Living ThingsImages, identification guides, and maps of Apoidea.
Popular introduction to the Hymenoptera Apoidea.
Fiori e Api d'Albore and IntoppaFlower visiting bees in Europe pdf. In Italian but excellent table with Latin names.
Native Bees of North America
Apocrita superfamilies
{{Apoidea-stub