Population, evolutionary and genomic studies in bees

Abstract

This research proposal encompasses 4 subprojects that are currently in development in our laboratory and involve three graduate students. Our scientific interest has been focused on the understanding of phylogenetic relationships, population genetics, and phylogeography of native bees from subfamily Apinae. The advent of new molecular methodologies, such as genomic analysis in large scale, has motivated us to introduce these new approaches to answer relevant questions concerning bee evolution and behavior. The subproject 1, originally conceived as master project, was expanded for a PhD project. Two species of Bombus presenting large geographic distribution are being used as model for phylogeographic and population analysis. By being important pollinators, their populations decline is a major concerning, thus our molecular data plus ecological niche modeling will give support for species conservation programs. Subprojects 2 and 3 4 are innovative in our laboratory. We intend to implement genomic analysis of large scale. Transcriptoma data will be obtained for highly eussocial, primitively eussocial and solitary bee species. The molecular data bank and further analysis will certainly shed some light into several intriguing questions concerning evolution of social behavior and diapause mechanisms. Finally we are presenting a technical subproject (4) aiming at isolating and characterizing microsatellite loci for some species under interest for population studies. (AU)