Phylogeny and behavior in honey bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Methods for distinguishing phylogenetic signal from noise are employed to resolve conflicting phylogenies produced by 3 separate morphological and molecular data sets for the 6 species of the honey bee genus Apis. Morphological data from larvae are employed for the 1st time. The results support the phylogeny produced by separate analyses of the morphological and mitochondrial 16s ribosomal DNA (rDNA) data sets, and contradict the result produced by the mitochondrial COII data set. Additionally, these results support previous conclusions that 16s rDNA sequence data are more informative for species-level rather than tribal-level relationships in the corbiculate bees. Resolution of Apis phylogeny permits for the 1st time unambiguous reconstruction of the ancestral states for several important behavioral characters in honey bee evolution.