Integrative taxonomic analysis to reveal the species status of Bombus flavidus, combining COI and nuclear sequencing, wing morphometrics and secretions used for mate attraction as well as patterns of color polymorphism
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Bumble bees, due to their morphological monotony and color diversity, have presented difficulties with species delimitation. Recent bumble bee declines have made it ever more imperative to resolve the status of species to address conservation concerns. Some of the taxa found to be most threatened are the often-rare socially parasitic bumble bees, which have additional trophic requirements. Among the socially parasitic bumble bees, Bombus flavidus Eversmann has contentious species status. While multiple separate species allied with Bombus flavidus have been suggested, until recently, recognition of two species, a Nearctic Bombus fernaldae (Franklin) and Palearctic B. flavidus, was favoured. Limited genetic data, however, suggested that even these could be a single widespread species, B. flavidus. We addressed the species status of this lineage using an integrative taxonomic approach, combining COI and nuclear sequencing, wing morphometrics and secretions used for mate attraction. We also explore patterns of color polymorphism that have previously confounded taxonomy in this lineage. Our results support the conspecific status of Bombus fernaldae and Bombus flavidus, however, sampling specimens from across the range of these two taxa revealed a distinct population within this broader species confined to eastern North America. This makes the distribution of the social parasite B. flavidus the broadest of any bumble bee, broader than the known distribution of any non-parasitic bumble bee species. Analysis of color phenotypes revealed that color polymorphisms are retained across the range of the species, but may be influenced by local mimicry complexes. Following these results, Bombus flavidus Eversmann, 1852 is synonymized with Bombus fernaldae (Franklin, 1911) syn. nov. and a subspecific status, Bombus flavidus appalachiensis ssp. nov., is assigned to the distinct lineage ranging from the Appalachians to the eastern boreal regions of the United States and far southeastern Canada.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".