Our understanding of bee phylogeny has improved over the past fifteen years as a result of new data, primarily nucleotide sequence data, and new methods, primarily model-based methods of phylogeny reconstruction. Phylogenetic studies based on single or, more commonly, multilocus data sets have helped resolve the placement of bees within the superfamily Apoidea; the relationships among the seven families of bees; and the relationships among bee subfamilies, tribes, genera, and species. In addition, molecular phylogenies have played an important role in inferring evolutionary patterns and processes in bees. Phylogenies have provided the comparative framework for understanding the evolution of host-plant associations and pollen specialization, the evolution of social behavior, and the evolution of parasitism. In this paper, we present an overview of significant discoveries in bee phylogeny based primarily on the application of molecular data. We review the phylogenetic hypotheses family-by-family and then describe how the new phylogenetic insights have altered our understanding of bee biology.

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Aim The evolutionary history of bees is presumed to extend back in time to the Early Cretaceous. Among all major clades of bees, Colletidae has been a prime example of an ancient group whose Gondwanan origin probably precedes the complete break-up of Africa, Antarctica, Australia and South America, because modern lineages of this family occur primarily in southern continents. In this paper, we aim to study the temporal and spatial diversification of colletid bees to better understand the processes that have resulted in the present southern disjunctions. Location Southern continents.Methods We assembled a dataset comprising four nuclear genes of a broad sample of Colletidae. We used Bayesian inference analyses to estimate the phylogenetic tree topology and divergence times. Biogeographical relationships were investigated using event-based analytical methods: a Bayesian approach to dispersal-vicariance analysis, a likelihood-based dispersal-extinctioncladogenesis model and a Bayesian model. We also used lineage through time analyses to explore the tempo of radiations of Colletidae and their context in the biogeographical history of these bees.

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