Molecular phylogeny of the bee genus Hoplitis (Megachilidae: Osmiini) - how does nesting biology affect biogeography?

The genus Hoplitis (Megachilidae: Osmiini) comprises about 360 described species and occurs on all continents except Australia, South America, and Antarctica. Using five genes, we inferred the phylogeny of Hoplitis including 23 out of the 27 currently recognized subgenera, applying both Bayesian and maximum likelihood methods. Compared to the current morphology‐based classification, our phylogeny resulted in three classificatory changes: first, the subgenera Alcidamea, Cyrtosmia, Dasyosmia, Megalosmia, Monumetha, and Prionohoplitis are merged into one large subgenus Alcidamea Cresson, 1864, comb. nov.; second, the subgenera Annosmia, Bytinskia, Coloplitis, and Hoplitis are merged into one large subgenus Hoplitis Klug, 1807, comb. nov.; third, the subgenera Acrosmia, Hoplitina, Penteriades, and Proteriades are merged into one large subgenus Proteriades Titus, 1904, comb. nov. We provide evidence that the genus Hoplitis has a Palaearctic origin and that colonization events to southern Africa and to the Nearctic, as well as recolonization events from the Nearctic to the Palaearctic occurred. The species of the genus Hoplitis exhibit an extraordinary diversity in nesting behaviour, comprising both below and above ground nesting. Parsimony mapping revealed that ground nesting in excavated burrows is the ancestral state amongst Hoplitis bees. We hypothesize that nesting biology strongly affected both range expansion and long‐distance dispersal in Hoplitis. © 2012 The Linnean Society of London