Resolving phylogenetic uncertainty and divergence times in colletid bees (Hymenoptera, Colletidae)

• Grant number: 24/12303-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: September 15, 2024
• End date: October 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo Andrade Botelho de Almeida
• Grantee: Felipe Vieira de Freitas
• Supervisor: Michael Gareth Branstetter
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: The Pollinating Insect-Biology, Management, Systematics Research/Ars-Usda, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/04048-0 - Phylogenomics and historical biogeography of colletid bees, BP.PD

Abstract

Colletidae is one of the seven bee families and includes over 2700 known species. Colletid bees are subdivided into eight subfamilies, and their phylogenetic relationships only became better understood in the last 15 years when molecular data became more widely applied. Despite the considerable progress made using Sanger-based phylogenetics with three to six molecular markers during the last decades, many doubts remain about how they are related to each other. Another aspect of doubtful colletid bee systematics has been the variation in the estimated divergence times among lineages. There are discrepancies between studies that used different kinds of data and taxon sampling. Here, we propose to investigate the phylogenetic relationships among the main lineages of Colletidae using a dataset of ultraconserved elements (UCEs) with two main goals: (1) evaluate the conflicting parts of the tree that seem to reflect instability and apply phylogenomic-based tree topological tests; (2) establish a reliable time frame for the divergence times within the colletid clade based on a comprehensive taxon sampling, novel calibration points and sophisticated statistical modeling of these estimates. Tree topological tests will be used to interrogate the data and evaluate if one of the possible topologies is preferred. The data generation will be conducted in the lab of Dr. Michael Branstetter at USDA-ARS (Logan, UT, USA), where there is a fully prepared facility for the data generation proposed for this study.