A Phylogenetic Analysis of Cuckoo Bumblebees (Psithyrus, Lepeletier) and Bumblebees (Bombus, Latreille) Inferred from Sequences of the Mitochondrial Gene Cytochrome Oxidase I

✍ Scribed by Bo Vest Pedersen

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 283 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1055-7903
• DOI: 10.1006/mpev.1996.0024

✦ Synopsis

In a thorough comparative analysis of the morphol-PCR amplification and direct sequencing of a 532-bp ogy of the British bumblebees, Richards (1927) conregion of the mt CO-1 (cytochrome oxidase I) gene from cluded that cuckoo bumblebees (Psithyrus) and true five true bumblebee species and six cuckoo bumblebee bumblebees (Bombus) are closely related. Psithyrus difspecies were performed. The sequences were then fers from Bombus s.l. in several morphological characaligned to the corresponding sequence in the honey ters, of which many are connected with parasitic life bee. Phylogenetic analyses based on parsimony and and, therefore, could have arisen convergently. Each maximum likelihood indicate that the cuckoo bumspecies of Psithyrus could have arisen from the ancesblebees form a monophyletic group within the true tor of its host species. A different hypothesis indicating bumblebees. The Bombus lucorum group (subgenus a polyphyletic origin was proposed by Tkalcu (1972). Bombus) falls out as the sister group to a clade com-He claimed that the recent Bombus subgenera have prising the cuckoo bumblebees and the remaining arisen from several stocks, the ancestral features of true bumblebees. A strong A؉T bias (A ؉ T ‫؍‬ 75%) was which are present in different Psithyrus subgenera. recorded. Comparisons of all the sequences show a Belle ´s et al. (1987) found in a chemotaxonomic analysis high-transversion bias (A ↔ T) even among closely that the Psithyrus species were clustered with various related species. The bias is most pronounced in third Bombus species, and in a few instances, host and inquipositions.