Extreme food-plant specialisation in Megabombus bumblebees as a product of long tongues combined with short nesting seasons.

Megabombus bumblebees have unusually long tongues and are generally more specialised than other bumblebees in their choice of food plants. The phylogeny of Megabombus bumblebees shows that speciation was concentrated in two periods. Speciation in the first period (ca 4.25-1.5 Ma) is associated with...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jiaxing Huang, Jiandong An, Jie Wu, Paul H Williams
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2015-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4534414?pdf=render