Phylogeny and biogeography of the oil‐collecting bee subgenus Centris (Wagenknechtia) (Hymenoptera, Apidae)

Abstract

Centridini is one most important and diverse tribe of solitary bees of the Neotropical Region (Griswold et al., 2006). Traditionally, in this group have been recognized two genera: Centris Fabricius and Epicharis Klug with twelve and nine subgenera, respectively (Moure et al., 2007). The monophyly of Centridini as well as of its two genera has been consistently demonstrated in different phylogenetic analyses using morphological characters of adults (Roig-Alsina & Michener 1993; Ayala (1998 apud Zanella 2002); Zanella 2002; M. C. Gaglianone (unpublished)). However, these results do not always agree with those obtained using immatures (Roig-Alsina & Michener 1993; Straka & Bogusch 2007) or behavioural characters (Noll 2002). Phylogenetic analyses using molecular data also show ambiguous results, recovering Centridini monophyletic (Bossert et al., 2019) or paraphyletic (see Cardinal et al.