Preliminary Chemosystematics of the Andrenidae and Exocrine Lipid Evolution of the Short-tongued Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea)

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Abstract
The complex arrays of lipids secreted from the exocrine Dufour''s glands of short-tongued bees (Colletidae, Halictidae, Oxaeidae, Andrenidae, Melittidae) reflect occasional evolutionary origins of novel chemical structures and frequent re-orchestrations of suites of ancestrally derived components. Despite the rarity of unique lipid constituents, cladistic analyses of the combinations of these diverse esters, aldehydes, lactones, hydrocarbons and carboxylic acids yield rooted phylogenies that are often either congruent with well-defined taxa or decisive for otherwise ambiguous taxonomic relationships. The short-tongued bees are chemosystematically divisible by their Dufour''s gland lipids into 2 lineages; the lactone-producing bees (Colletidae, Oxaediae, Halictinae, Nomiinae) and an andrenid-melittid-dufoureine group. Bee taxa that are soundly defined by morphological criteria, such as Perdita, Melitta, Protandrena and Calliopsis-Nomadopsis-Hypomacrotera group (paraffin bees), also appear to be monophyletic using the lipid characters. The Dufour''s gland lipid products of previously unrepresented genera of the Panurginae (16 spp.), Dasypodinae (1 sp.) and Melittinae (1 sp.) are described, as are a new representative each of Andrena, Dufourea and Melitta.