Rebecca M. Dew

University of New Hampshire | UNH · College of Life Sciences and Agriculture (COLSA)

Bees collect pollen from flowers for their offspring, and by doing so contribute critical pollination services for our crops and ecosystems. Unlike many managed bee species, wild bees are thought to obtain much of their microbiome from the environment. However, we know surprisingly little about what plant species bees visit and the microbes associa...

Climate change is a key threat to pollination networks and has already caused shifts in the distribution and phenology of many bee species. Predictions based on species distribution models forecast that most bee species will continue to decline as climate change progresses, the few exceptions to this being common, widespread species with large disp...

• Species distribution modelling (SDM) has been applied to multiple bee species to examine how they may respond to future climate change. Those studies indicate a variety of likely responses to a warming climate. No SDM approaches, however, have been undertaken for arid‐adapted bees, despite their enormous diversity in xeric habitats. • We applied...

Facultatively social species allow for empirical examination of the factors underlying evolutionary transitions between primitive and complex forms of sociality. Variation in climate along altitudinal and latitudinal gradients often influences social behaviour in these species. This facultative sociality has been well-documented in the ground-nesti...

The taxonomic status of lineages within the Australian allodapine bees has been unstable over the last six decades, with multiple changes in generic and subgeneric assignments. This is unhelpful given the continuing attention to these bees for understanding social evolution and biogeography. The Australian genus Exoneurella (Michener, 1963 Hymenopt...

The comparison of social systems, particularly in closely related taxa, can be highly valuable to the understanding of social evolution. While much research has focused on the formation of hierarchies and eusocial organisation, it needs to be remembered that not all social systems are necessarily based on hierarchies. The allodapine bee Exoneurella...

Facultatively social species exhibit varying degrees of reproductive skew that provide valuable insights into the possible evolutionary forces shaping the origins of obligate eusocial colony organisation, wherein the majority of individuals (workers) forgo direct reproduction. Here we report aspects of the nesting biology of a semi-arid population...

The small carpenter bees, genus Ceratina, are highly diverse, globally distributed, and comprise the sole genus in the tribe Ceratinini. Despite the diversity of the subgenus Neoceratina in the Oriental and Indo- Malayan region, Ceratina (Neoceratina) australensis is the only ceratinine species in Australia. We examine the biogeography and demograp...

There has been considerable debate surrounding the evolution of eusociality, which has recently increased in vigor with regard to what actually constitutes eusociality. Surprisingly, there has been little discussion on terminologies for describing social systems that are more-or-less egalitarian, yet such societies form an obvious contrast to eusoc...

Eusociality is a complex form of social behaviour with colonies comprised of distinct queen and worker castes. Most of the evolutionary origins of this behaviour have been obscured by time, with all extant taxa in those groups displaying eusociality without the original transitional forms. In the Australian Allodapini, however, there is only one kn...

Circle-tube experiments have been widely used to both examine nestmate recognition in social and solitary insects, as well as to characterise interactions in terms of agonism, cooperation, and avoidance. Despite their use in studies of halictid bees, carpenter bees, adrenid bees, and wasps, they have never been used to explore social interactions i...

INTRODUCTION: Australia has the most unusual bee fauna in the world (Michener 1965), but the nesting biology and behaviour of our bees has been studied for only a very small proportion of species. The only Australian native bees that live in hives are the stingless bees (tribe Meliponini) and these are restricted to the northern half of Australia....

Evolutionary origins of highly eusocial organization involving morphological castes have been very rare, yet these origins have often led to enormous diversification and ecological success. This suggests that once an apparently severe selective barrier to highly eusocial behaviour is overcome, major new adaptive landscapes open up. One would theref...