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The full potential for using DNA barcodes for profiling functional trait diversity has yet to be determined in plants and animals; thus, we outline a general framework for quantifying functional trait diversity of insect community DNA and propose and assess the accuracy of three methods for achieving this. We built a novel dataset of traits and DNA barcodes for wild bees in China. An informatics framework was developed for phylogeny‐based integration of these data and prediction of traits for any subject barcodes, which was compared with two distance‐based methods. For Phylogenetic Assignment, we additionally conducted a species‐level analysis of publically available bee trait data. Under the specimen‐level dataset, the rate of trait assignment was negatively correlated with distance between the query and the nearest trait‐known reference, for all methods. Phylogenetic Assignment was found to perform best under several criteria; particularly, it had the lowest false‐positive rate (rarely returning a state prediction where success was unlikely; where the distance from query to the nearest reference was high). For a wider range of compiled traits, conservative life‐history traits showed the highest rates of assignment; for example, sociality was predicted with confidence at 53%, parasitism at 44% and nest location at 33%. As outlined herein, automated trait assignment might be applied at scale to either barcodes or metabarcodes. With further compilation and databasing of DNA barcode and trait data, the rate and accuracy of trait assignment is expected to increase to the point of being a widely viable and informative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent advances in phylogenomics, the early evolution of the largest bee family, Apidae, remains uncertain, hindering efforts to understand the history of Apidae and establish a robust comparative framework. Confirming the position of Anthophorinae—a diverse, globally distributed lineage of apid bees—has been particularly problematic, with the subfamily recovered in various conflicting positions, including as sister to all other Apidae or to the cleptoparasitic Nomadinae. We aimed to resolve relationships in Apidae and Anthophorinae by combining dense taxon sampling, with rigorous phylogenomic analysis of a dataset consisting of ultraconserved elements (UCEs) acquired from multiple sources, including low-coverage genomes. Across a diverse set of analyses, including both concatenation and species tree approaches, and numerous permutations designed to account for systematic biases, Anthophorinae was consistently recovered as the sister group to all remaining Apidae, with Nomadinae sister to (Apinae, [Xylocopinae, Eucerinae]). However, several alternative support metrics (concordance factors, quartet sampling, and gene genealogy interrogation) indicate that this result should be treated with caution. Within Anthophorinae, all genera were recovered as monophyletic, following synonymization of Varthemapistra with Habrophorula. Our results demonstrate the value of dense taxon sampling in bee phylogenomics research and how implementing diverse analytical strategies is important for fully evaluating results at difficult nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthidiini, a large bee tribe characterized by light-colored maculations, represents nearly 1,000 pollinator species, but no genomes are yet available for this tribe. Here, we report a chromosome-level genome assembly of Anthidium xuezhongi collected from the Tibetan Plateau. Using PacBio long reads and Hi-C data, we assembled a genome of 189.14 Mb with 99.94% of the assembly located in 16 chromosomes. Our assembly contains 23 scaffolds, with the scaffold N50 length of 12.53 Mb, and BUSCO completeness of 98.70% (n  = 1,367). We masked 25.98 Mb (13.74%) of the assembly as repetitive elements, identified 385 noncoding RNAs, and predicted 10,820 protein-coding genes (99.20% BUSCO completeness). Gene family evolution analyses identified 9,251 gene families, of which 31 gene families experienced rapid evolution. Interspecific chromosomal variation among A. xuezhongi , Bombus terrestris , and Apis mellifera showed strong chromosomal syntenic relationships. This high-quality genome assembly is a valuable resource for evolutionary and comparative genomic analyses of bees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]