Expanded phylogeny of Nomadinae (Hymenoptera: Apidae) with integration of UCE and DNA barcode sequence data

Abstract

The apid subfamily Nomadinae is the oldest and most diverse clade of brood parasitic bees. Through the incorporation of data from a variety of sources, we generated the most detailed and taxonomically complete phylogeny of this group to date. Despite differing amounts of genetic data available for different species, the tree topology largely matched with expected relationships based on previous findings, with 95% of barcode-only taxa placed in taxonomically consistent positions and all tribes recovered as monophyletic. We further carried out divergence time estimation to investigate the evolutionary history of Nomadinae and place the phylogeny along the geological time scale, recovering an estimated age of 99 Ma for the group. Testing for the effect of barcode-only taxa on estimated dates indicated that ages for deep nodes were robust, though the inclusion of such taxa with limited sequence data tended to push shallower nodes towards older dates. Though this approach may not be appropriate for all applications, the potential for integration of cytochrome oxidase DNA barcode sequences with modern phylogenomic (ultraconserved element) sequence data is an encouraging indication that the wealth of previously published data available through sequence repositories retains the capacity to be informative to future phylogenetic studies.