Open Access100 Ma sweat bee nests: Early and rapid co-diversification of crown bees and flowering plants
Author(s) -
Jorge Fernando Genise,
Eduardo S. Bellosi,
Laura Cristina Sarzetti,
J. Marcelo Krause,
Pablo Adrián Dinghi,
María Victoria López Sánchez,
Aldo M. Umazano,
Pablo Puerta,
Liliana F. Cantil,
Brian R. Jicha
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0227789
Subject(s) - trace fossil , biology , ecology , woodland , botany , paleontology
100 Ma sweat bee nests reported herein are the oldest evidence of crown bees. A new phylogeny for short-tongued bees, calibrated with these nests dated with 40 Ar/ 39 Ar, attests for the first time for a late Albian rapid diversification of bees along with angiosperms. Such hypothesis lacked paleontological support until this study. The new ichnospecies Cellicalichnus krausei , which was found along with wasp trace fossils and new beetle trace fossils in the Castillo Formation of Patagonia, represents typical Halictini nests composed of sessile cells that are attached to main tunnels. According to geological, paleosol, paleobotanical, and ichnological data, bees, and angiosperms cohabited in an inland and dry environment comparable to an open dry woodland or savanna, under warm-temperate and semiarid-subhumid climate, in the Southern Hemisphere by the Albian.