Abstract :
[en] Bees are one of the major groups of pollinators of flowering plants. The understanding of their evolution and diversification is of high importance for their conservation, but requires integrating bee fossil to the current taxa history. Wing shape morphometrics were used to assess taxonomic affinities of fossils with present and extinct. We studied nine bee fossils: four newly described fossils from the Upper Oligocene of Céreste (FR), the Miocene of la Cerdanya (ES), and the Eocene shale of the Green River Formation in Utah (USA); and five fossils from the Eocene Florissant shale of Colorado (USA), the Eocene Baltic amber (EU), the Eocene Oise amber (FR) and the Miocene lacustrine mudstone of the Shanwang Formation (CN). Most of extant and extinct bee tribes were sampled to assemble a reference data: 76 tribes of Anthophila and apoid wasps (sister group), represented by 471 species (more than 1800 female specimens). Predictive discriminant analyses allowed us to recover the taxonomic placement of the four newly described species: the first, Bombus cerdanyensis sp. nov., was assigned to bumble bee (Bombini), the second, Protohabropoda pauli sp. nov., to digger bee (Anthophorini), the third one, Euglossopteryx biesmeijeri sp. nov., to an extinct bee tribe close to Euglossini, while forewing shape of the last one, Andrena antoinei sp. nov., is more similar to the Andrenidae. By considering the five already described specimens, predictive discriminant analyses show that one share taxonomic affinities with the subfamily Andreninae (Andrenidae) and the four remaining are similar to the Melittidae (tribe Macropidini). Our results provide new information on the distribution and rate of diversification of particular bee groups, most notably the extension into North America of possible Eocene-Oligocene cooling-induced extinctions.
