Taxonomy, phylogenetics and classification
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The bees of the family Halictidae Thomson, 1869 from Dominica are reviewed. Seven new species are... more The bees of the family Halictidae Thomson, 1869 from Dominica are reviewed. Seven new species are described and illustrated: Lasioglossum (Dialictus) kalinago sp. nov., L. (D.) dominicense sp. nov., L. (D.) kilpatrickae sp. nov., L. (Habralictellus) roseauense sp. nov., Sphecodes diablotinus sp. nov., S. albifacies sp. nov. and Habralictus antillarus sp. nov. A description and images of the previously unknown female of Microsphecodes dominicanus (Stage, 1972) are provided. In total, eleven species are recognized: eight nest-building species and three kleptoparasites. All halictid species from Dominica are currently known only from the island. A key to halictid bees from Dominica is provided.
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Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 2010
Numerous developmental anomalies have been reported in bees (Knerer and Atwood, 1964; Wcislo et a... more Numerous developmental anomalies have been reported in bees (Knerer and Atwood, 1964; Wcislo et al., 2004; Michez et al., 2009, and references therein) many of which are sex anomalies. Eye aberrations are less commonly reported. Bees with a single compound ...
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Zootaxa, 2013
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Cladistics, 2012
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Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2012
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Journal of Melittology, 2013
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European Journal of Taxonomy, 2012
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... The unstable “burn-in” region was removed by deleting the initial 25% of trees in the analysi... more ... The unstable “burn-in” region was removed by deleting the initial 25% of trees in the analysis. Species descriptions are included for the cryptic species identified using integrative taxonomy. ... This is meant to prevent the use of unwieldy measurements in standard units. ...
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The Canadian Entomologist, 2009
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Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 2012
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ZooKeys, 2012
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Bee diversity, pollination, and conservation
Restoration efforts often focus on plants, but additionally require the establishment and long-te... more Restoration efforts often focus on plants, but additionally require the establishment and long-term persistence of diverse groups of nontarget organisms, such as bees, for important ecosystem functions and meeting restoration goals. We investigated long-term patterns in the response of bees to habitat restoration by sampling bee communities along a 26-year chronosequence of restored tallgrass prairie in north-central Illinois, U.S.A. Specifically, we examined how bee communities changed over time since restoration in terms of (1) abundance and richness, (2) community composition, and (3) the two components of beta diversity, one-to-one species replacement, and changes in species richness. Bee abundance and raw richness increased with restoration age from the low level of the pre-restoration (agricultural) sites to the target level of the remnant prairie within the first 2–3 years after restoration, and these high levels were maintained throughout the entire restoration chronosequence. Bee community composition of the youngest restored sites differed from that of prairie remnants, but 5–7 years post-restoration the community composition of restored prairie converged with that of remnants. Landscape context, particularly nearby wooded land, was found to affect abundance, rarefied richness, and community composition. Partitioning overall beta diversity between sites into species replacement and richness effects revealed that the main driver of community change over time was the gradual accumulation of species, rather than one-to-one species replacement. At the spatial and temporal scales we studied, we conclude that prairie restoration efforts targeting plants also successfully restore bee communities. Implications for Practice • Current prairie restoration efforts that target plant communities can also successfully restore diverse communities of nontarget bee pollinators, at least in interconnected prairie landscapes through which bees can easily disperse. • Bee abundance and richness increase to near reference (prairie remnant) levels within the first few years of restoration. Thus, restored plants are likely to have access to pollinators in the early years of a restoration. • Over the remainder of the time series, bee communities develop through the gradual accumulation of species rather than through species replacement. • The prairie restoration chronosequence we studied was located in a large expanse of remnant and restored prairie sites, which may have facilitated the rapid colonization and establishment of bees in our study.
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Highbush blueberry yields are dependent on pollination by bees, and introduction of managed honey... more Highbush blueberry yields are dependent on pollination by bees, and introduction of managed honey bees is the primary strategy used for pollination of this crop. Complementary pollination services are also provided by wild bees, yet highbush blueberry is increasingly grown in regions outside its native range where wild bee communities may be less adapted to the crop and growers may still be testing appropriate honey bee stocking densities. To contrast crop pollination in native and non-native production regions, we sampled commercial 'Bluecrop' blueberry fields in British Columbia and Michigan with grower-selected honey bee stocking rates (0–39.5 hives per ha) to compare bee visitors to blueberry flowers, pollination and yield deficits, and how those vary with local-and landscape-scale factors. Observed and Chao-1 estimated species richness, as well as Shannon diversity of wild bees visiting blueberries were significantly higher in Michigan where the crop is within its native range. The regional bee communities were also significantly different, with Michigan farms having greater dissimilarity than British Columbia. Blueberry fields in British Columbia had fewer visits by honey bees than those in Michigan, irrespective of stocking rate, and they also had lower berry weights and a significant pollination deficit. In British Columbia, pollination service increased with abundance of wild bumble bees, whereas in Michigan the abundance of honey bees was the primary predictor of pollination. The proportion of semi-natural habitat at local and landscape scales was positively correlated with wild bee abundance in both regions. Wild bee abundance declined significantly with distance from natural borders in Michigan, but not in British Columbia where large-bodied bumble bees dominated the wild bee community. Our results highlight the varying dependence of crop production on different types of bees and reveal that strategies for pollination improvement in the same crop can vary greatly across production regions.
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These relationships are often phylogenetically shared; thus quantifying allometric relationships
may allow for estimating difficult-to-measure traits across species. One such trait, proboscis
length in bees, is assumed to be important in structuring bee communities and plantpollinator
networks. However, it is difficult to measure and thus rarely included in ecological
analyses. We measured intertegular distance (as a measure of body size) and proboscis
length (glossa and prementum, both individually and combined) of 786 individual bees of
100 species across 5 of the 7 extant bee families (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila).
Using linear models and model selection, we determined which parameters provided the
best estimate of proboscis length. We then used coefficients to estimate the relationship
between intertegular distance and proboscis length, while also considering family. Using
allometric equations with an estimation for a scaling coefficient between intertegular distance
and proboscis length and coefficients for each family, we explain 91% of the variance
in species-level means for bee proboscis length among bee species. However, within species,
individual-level intertegular distance was a poor predictor of individual proboscis
length. To make our findings easy to use, we created an R package that allows estimation
of proboscis length for individual bee species by inputting only family and intertegular distance.
The R package also calculates foraging distance and body mass based on previously
published equations. Thus by considering both taxonomy and intertegular distance
we enable accurate estimation of an ecologically and evolutionarily important trait.