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. 2006 Jul 7;273(1594):1643-9.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3496.

Recent and simultaneous origins of eusociality in halictid bees

Seán G Brady  1 , Sedonia Sipes, Adam Pearson, Bryan N Danforth
Affiliations

Recent and simultaneous origins of eusociality in halictid bees

Seán G Brady et al. Proc Biol Sci. .

Abstract

Eusocial organisms are characterized by cooperative brood care, generation overlap and reproductive division of labour. Traits associated with eusociality are most developed in ants, termites, paper wasps and corbiculate bees; the fossil record indicates that each of these advanced eusocial taxa evolved in the Late Cretaceous or earlier (greater than 65 Myr ago). Halictid bees also include a large and diverse number of eusocial members, but, in contrast to advanced eusocial taxa, they are characterized by substantial intra- and inter-specific variation in social behaviour, which may be indicative of more recent eusocial evolution. To test this hypothesis, we used over 2400 bp of DNA sequence data gathered from three protein-coding nuclear genes (opsin, wingless and EF-1a) to infer the phylogeny of eusocial halictid lineages and their relatives. Results from relaxed molecular clock dating techniques that utilize a combination of molecular and fossil data indicate that the three independent origins of eusociality in halictid bees occurred within a narrow time frame between approximately 20 and 22 Myr ago. This relatively recent evolution helps to explain the pronounced levels of social variation observed within these bees. The three origins of eusociality appear to be temporally correlated with a period of global warming, suggesting that climate may have had an important role in the evolution and maintenance of eusociality in these bees.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chronogram for the three eusocial lineages of halictid bees (black branches) derived from Bayesian phylogenetic and dating methods. The taxa H. quadricinctus, L. calceatum and L. lustrans have secondarily reverted to a socially polymorphic or solitary condition. All resolved nodes in the tree received 100% posterior support except the four shown with their respective values. The open circle indicates the root node set in this analysis with an a priori age of 80±20 Myr BP. Shaded circles indicate Dominican amber fossil minimum-age constraints (23 Myr BP) and the solid circle indicates Baltic amber fossil minimum-age constraint (42 Myr BP). Shaded vertical bar represents the Late Oligocene warming and Mid-Miocene climatic optimum. Error bars are 95% credibility intervals. Abbreviations: H, Halictus; L, Lasioglossum.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sensitivity analyses of the Bayesian dating method with means and 95% credibility intervals of the three eusocial lineages as inferred under the following a priori root node ages: a, 100±20 Myr BP; b, 100±20 Myr BP, including only the Baltic amber fossil calibration; c, 80±20 Myr BP; d, 65±20 Myr BP; and e, 65±40 Myr BP. Grey shaded bar, warming period.
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