Phylogenetics of the allodapine bee genus Braunsapis: historical biogeography and long-range dispersal over water

As with many animal and plant groups, Madagascar has a high level of endemicity among its bee fauna (Pauly et al., 2001). While it has been assumed that many Malagasy bee taxa have resulted from dispersal events across the Mozambique Channel (e.g. Michener, 1977), there have been no studies that have explicitly assessed how frequently bees have been able to cross this barrier or have assessed the likelihood of vicariance models, involving the rifting of Madagascar and India from Africa, in shaping the Malagasy fauna. Madagascar provides an excellent opportunity for contrasting vicariance and dispersal models because the time at which rifting occurred (c. 80– 90 Ma) is well understood. The rapid separation of the School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia