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A NUMERICAL TAXONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTIONARY RELATIONSHIPS OF BOMBUS AND PSITHYRUS (APIDAE: HYMENOPTERA)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

R. C. Plowright  and
W. P. Stephen
R. C. Plowright
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
W. P. Stephen
Affiliation:
Department of Entomology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon
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Abstract

The question of whether the evolutionary origin of the parasitic bumble bees (Psithyrus Lep.) was monophyletic or polyphyletic has not been convincingly resolved by conventional systematics. In this study numerical taxonomic (NT) analysis was applied to data on wing venation from a set of 13 species of Psithyrus and 60 species of non-parasitic bumble bees (Bombus Latr.), representing 16 of the subgeneric divisions recognized by Richards. The resultant cluster analysis gave an almost perfect grouping of the constituent Bombus species into their ’correct’ subgenera. This was taken as evidence that the NT procedure had yielded discriminant criteria of evolutionary significance. Since the same criteria also produced a single grouping of the Psithyrus species, the results support a monophyletic origin for Psithyrus.

Type
Articles
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 105 , Issue 5 , May 1973 , pp. 733 - 743
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1973

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