Phylogeography of B. morio and B. atratus (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

Abstract

Phylogeography of B. morio and B. atratus (Hymenoptera: Apidae)Bombus is vital for mankind and ecosystems (Adriaens, 2005) mainly in cold regions, where acted as main pollinators. The genus is typically Holartic, finely adapted for cold places and with high diversity in Eurasia, while the subgenus Fervidobombus is restrict to the New World, specially to the South. Among these species, B. morio and B. atratus are good models to study Biogeography, because they have large distribution (allows to study many phenomena that could have influenced their population genetics structure), they are not threatened; they are associated to tropical and subtropical rainforests (which means any historical modification in the landscape forests could be reflected in the current population genetics structure); they are abundant, easy to collect and also common in museum collections. The objectives of this research are to evaluate the population genetics structure of B. atratus and B. morio, to verify if they actually consist unique species (or if they are complexes of species, specially for their large occurrence areas and for the large morphological diversity found in B. atratus), to test some population evolutionary hypothesis of these bumblebees, to analyze the population phylogeografic structure along all the distribution and to study the phenomena that shaped these populations and eventual lineages and their distribution with a Biogeographic approach.