D3165: Using molecular techniques to study pollen provisioning breadth among species in the bee subgenus Macrotera (Macroteropsis) Timberlake (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae)

Monday, November 11, 2024

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST

Location: Phoenix Convention Center, Exhibit Hall 6, PCC

Presenting Author(s)

TB

Tanner Bland (he/him/his)

MS Student
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona

Co-Author(s)

Wendy Moore (she/her/hers)

Professor and Curator
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona

Interactions between bees and their host plants underlie our knowledge of their ecology, life history, and coevolution. To standardize the study of pollination biology, terms such as “polylectic,” “oligolectic,” and “monolectic” have been used to define varying levels of specialization of bees to their angiosperm hosts. However, bees visit flowers for different reasons, including for their own nutrition as well as for collecting pollen for their larvae. Much of our understanding of floral visitation currently relies on observational data alone. Considering the ephemeral, and often unpredictable life cycles of solitary bees, relying solely on observational data may lead to biases that could impede future conservation strategies for at-risk species. To disentangle foraging breath from larval provisioning breath, we use molecular metagenomic techniques to study pollen loads from museum specimens of six species belonging to the subgenus Macrotera (Macroteropsis) Timberlake. These species are thought to visit a narrow range of genera within the Cactaceae and Malvaceae. We thereby test the efficacy of observation-only studies to estimate larval provisioning breadth. We also infer a multi-locus species-level phylogeny of Macrotera (Macroteropsis) and investigate shifts in pollen provisioning preferences within an evolutionary context.