Multi-locus species discovery in a cryptic group of long-horned bees

Presenter

Mike Anthony Lauback Hidalgo

Campus

UMass Amherst

Sponsor

Jeremy Catalin Andersen, Department of Environmental Conservation, UMass Amherst

Schedule

Session 5, 3:30 PM - 4:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board A100, Campus Center Auditorium, Row 5 (A81-A100) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

Insects are the most diverse group of multi-cellular organisms on the planet, with over 1 million described species known to date. Recently, there have been troubling reports of an “Insect Apocalypse”, wherein an estimated 50% of all insect species could go extinct. The lack of clarity about the current numbers and overall diversity of insect species makes effective conservation efforts to maintain healthy and functional ecosystems in the future difficult. In addition, many species of insects are part of “cryptic species”, complexes of morphologically similar but genetically distinct lineages. Long-horned bees in the genus Melissodes, are a perfect example of the difficulty associated with insect identification based on morphological characteristics, and conservation. Many of these species are important pollinators for agricultural crops, with reports of population declines across North America. One promising approach for insect identification is the use of DNA sequencing to classify unidentified specimens to species, commonly referred to as “DNA barcoding”. While powerful, it has many known limitations and only captures the evolutionary history of a single gene fragment. In contrast, multi-locus sequencing provides multiple independent insights into the evolutionary history of an organism from across the entire genome. Here we utilize multi-locus sequencing to explore species boundaries for Melissodes bees collected from sunflowers in western Massachusetts. DNA fragments of four loci were amplified using standard PCR approaches, sequences were edited and aligned with other sequences from public databases, and then multi-locus analysis performed. We discuss how the results provide insights to species boundaries in this group. 

Keywords

Pollinators, PCR amplification, Melissodes, Phylogenetics, DNA Sequencing

Research Area

Environmental Science and Sustainability

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