User:Dhara612/sandbox

Dhara Patel, Roselyn Giordano, Emily Cruz

Things indicated by *** on either side have been added to the Eucera Wikipedia page.

Morphology
Eucera have a thick layer of fur and are dark in color. They have a protuberant clypeus and are typically around 0.4 to 0.7 inches long. The size of bees in the Eucera genus range from 11-18 mm. When emerging from nests, an immature Eucera nigrilabris male will be somewhat red in color and a bit sluggish. A mature Eucera nigrilabris male will appear grey in color and more active.

Sexual Dimorphism
In comparison to female bees in Eucera berlandi, male bees have an extended antennae. Their antennae contain three times the amount of neurons for olfaction and ten times more pore plates than female bees.

Phylogeny
Research shows that the Eucera complex originated in the Nearctic region in the late Oligocene and dispersed twice. The first dispersal having occurred as far as  24.2- 16.6 million years ago during the warmer summer season and later again 13.9-12.3 million years ago during the springtime, allowing Eucera to thrive in cooler regions.

Eucera belong to the tribe Eucerini and makes up 50% of the tribe. Certain subgenera have been added to the Eucera genus: Tetralonia, Peponapis, Syntrichalonia, Cemolobus, Xenoglossodes and Xenoglossa.

Sociality
Eucera, similar to the tribe Eucerini, are solitary by nature. In eusocial bee species, such as honey bees, drones are raised and fed in their colonies. The drones in the Eucera genus live their lives independently.

Alarm Signaling
Eucera do not respond to alarm signal inflorescences in the way a social bee would. Eucera bees respond similarly to flowers that have predation alarm signals and flowers that do not have such alarm signals.

Behavior
Bees of the Eucera genus are active in the months of February to May.

Flight Behavior
Eucera have a Spring flight season.

***Mating Behaviors
Eucera kullenbergi is known to fall victim to sexual deception by Ophrys leochroma flowers that mimic the sex pheromones of female bees. The Eucera palestinae live in dense nest aggregations with males emerging from their nests in the ground about a week before the females to take a look around the nesting site. Once the females emerge, males of the species will engage in aggressive competition to mate with them. Not long after mating the female becomes unreceptive. The initial attraction towards a female is by sight, but there is additional research suggesting that virgin females are distinguished by their specific scent and therefore are sought after more aggressively. It is thought that the cause of this sex attraction is due to small glands located on tergites on the abdomen. In Eucera nigrilabris, the males also emerge a few days earlier than females. Once the female emerges from the nest, males will fight with each other to mate. Mating time in this species occurred for 3-6 minutes, and once the female has mated, she becomes unresponsive. ***

***Nesting Preferences
Eucera are solitary bees that nest within the ground. They tend to nest in areas that are comprised of clay or sand. It is a characteristic of all bees of the Eucera genus to have vertical and elongated cells within nests. There are around two to three cells per nest, which are found branching off of the main tunnel. In Eucera nigrilabris, each tunnel would harbor four to six cells. The first few cells were false cells and not used for reproductive purposes, the cells below these false cells were used to lay eggs. Also, the entirety of the tunnel was lined with wax. For nesting, Eucera nigrilabris prefers soil of lower sodicity and salinity that has low calcium carbonate concentrations. They make lined nests that are 85cm into the ground that have many cells located within a tunnel that is branched. There has not been any observed occurrences of kleptoparasitism around Eucera nigrilabris nesting sites.

Eucera palestinae use their Dufour’s gland to secrete a mixture of hydrocarbons, methyl esters and unsaturated fatty acids which provide the nest with an odor. This odor then helps the bee locate their home when living in a dense aggregation of nests. ***

Foraging Behaviors
Eucera can be generalist or specialist in foraging preference. They are able to pollinate both agricultural and naturally occurring plants. They pollinate plants in the deserts of Israel and the Mediterranean. Eucera, like other efficient foragers, avoid going back to the same food source after it has been previously depleted. Research suggests that Eucera use a combination of reward-based-patch-leaving rule and scent marking strategy to avoid returning to previously visited sites. Eucera resemble bumble bees in this matter but it is believed that they use different strategies (bumble bees use a numerical strategy) suggesting that the difference in strategies may reflect lower learning capabilities of solitary bees like Eucera when compared to the social bumble bee. Eucera cinerea has specialized thick bristles that curve and are used for foraging for pollen within flowers that have hidden anthers. Eucera parvicornis showcases significant pollen foraging from Anchusa plants. Bees from the Eucera genera from southwest France are known to mainly forage from Fabaceae and Brassicaceae plants. Peponapis and Xenoglossa are known to be specialists for squash plants, such as Cucurbita Pepo.

Kleptoparasitism
Eucera bees typically fall victim to the bee genus Nomada, a genus that typically lays their eggs in the nests of other bees.