Systematic Entomology最新文献

The Cixiidae represent the most diverse family within Hemiptera Fulgoromorpha, accounting for nearly 20% of the described species. A molecular phylogenetic analysis of 147 taxa reveals a new evolutionary scenario for the family, identifying four major lineages: borystheninian (restricted to the Borysthenini), oecleinian and pentastirinian, grouped in one clade, sister to the cixiinian one. In the oecleinian lineage, the Oecleini are paraphyletic, including the Bothriocerini. Three groups are identified in the pentastirinian lineage: the Hyalesthes⁺, Pentastiridius⁺ and Oliarus⁺ clades. Within the cixiinian lineage, as traditionally recognised, the Cixiini tribe is polyphyletic, involving a basally separated Achaemenes clade, a newly described Chidaeini trib. nov., and the ‘true Cixiini’ clade, which itself remains paraphyletic, including the Semonini. The Andini tribe appears paraphyletic, including the Brixiini, and the position of the Gelastocephalini is yet to be confirmed. Despite its significance, the sampling remains incomplete, hindering, in our opinion, the formal taxonomic recognition of these lineages with formal ranks for a new classification of the Cixiidae. Fossil-calibrated tree analysis indicates that Cixiidae originated in Lower Jurassic, approximately 181 million years ago. The four identified main lineages diverged during the Lower Jurassic in some 12 million years only, 155 million years ago. All currently recognised tribes and new major clades revealed with this study were present as early as the mid-Cretaceous, around 100 million years ago; however, the Bennini tribe and the ‘true Cixiini’ clade emerged later, some 75 million years ago.

Leptocircini is a dazzling tribe of Papilionidae, including dragontails, kite swallowtails and swordtails. This tribe is widely distributed, notably throughout the tropics of Africa, Southeast Asia and the Americas, making it a fascinating model in evolutionary biology. However, despite accounting for 25% of the global swallowtail butterfly diversity, Leptocircini have been surprisingly neglected in phylogenetic analyses. This has left unanswered questions about their taxonomy and systematics. Here, we present a new taxonomic working list for Leptocircini, featuring 162 valid species. Using a combination of long and short reads data, we produced five new reference genomes, and we generated highly covered and scaffolded whole genomes for 148 individuals to infer densely sampled phylogenetic hypotheses. Based on mitochondrial or thousands of nuclear genes and multiple phylogenetic approaches, a robust phylogenomic tree is recovered, representing approximately 90% of the known species, which allowed examination of several key phylogenetic hypotheses. We found the monotypic genus Protographium Munroe to be sister of genus Graphium Scopoli. Additionally, we found that subgenus Paranticopsis Wood-Mason and de Nicéville is nested within subgenus Pathysa Reakirt, which we found is likely attributed to an ancient gene flow. We therefore synonymize Paranticopsis, syn.rest. To keep a consistent approach to subgeneric classification across the tribe and family, we devided genus Eurytides Hübner into three subgenera: Mimoides Brown, Eurytides sensu stricto and Protesilaus Swainson. This led to several taxonomic implications: Asiographium Möhn, syn.rest., Boreographium Grishin, syn.n., Hyalaus Grishin, syn.n. and Neographium Möhn, syn.n. are synonymized with Eurytides (Mimoides); and Eurygraphium Möhn, syn.rest. is synonymized with Eurytides (Eurytides). Our analyses finally raised concerns about potential taxonomic inflation in two species-groups within Graphium and Eurytides (Protesilaus). This study illuminates the clade's evolutionary history and paves the way for further research on this diverse group of charismatic butterflies.

Understanding how novel adaptive traits arise, evolve and impact other aspects of an organism's phenotype is a foundational question in evolutionary biology. We explore this by focusing on Onciderini (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae), a tribe of longhorn beetles commonly referred to as twig girdlers because the females of some species girdle live trees to deposit their eggs. We reconstructed the first time-calibrated phylogeny of the Onciderini, based on three genetic markers (cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 ‘cox1’, Wingless ‘Wg’ and carbamoyl-phosphate synthase domain of the CAD locus ‘CPS’), and used morphometric data, employing multiple models of trait evolution and phylogenetic regressions, to assess whether girdling behaviour predicts head size or head size sexual dimorphism. Our results indicate that onciderines originated c. 49 million years ago ‘Ma’ (95% highest posterior densities ‘HPD’: 44.1–54.57 Ma) and consist of two major lineages, which we formalize as subtribes Hypsiomatina and Onciderina. Additionally, our analyses revealed several taxonomic inconsistencies within the tribe, which we rectify by proposing new synonymies, including Jamesia Jekel as a synonym of Hypselomus Perty, Cipriscola Dillon & Dillon of Hypsioma Audinet-Serville and Psyllotoxus Thomson and Taricanus Thomson as a synonym of Oncideres Lacordaire, and a new combination for Periergates kenjii Nearns & Swift as Oncideres kenjii (Nearns & Swift) comb. nov. Using this new phylogenetic framework, we identified five independent unidirectional origins of girdling behaviour within the tribe. Overall, our results suggest that girdling influences head size evolution in Onciderini, as it is associated with an increase in both male and female head size of girdler species. Despite this, girdling and non-girdling lineages do not consistently differ in head size sexual dimorphism. This study refines the classification of Onciderini and marks a significant step in understanding the evolutionary dynamics shaping the diversity of twig-girdler beetles, a group with notable ecological and economic importance.

Latitudinal diversity gradients are one of the most widely discussed patterns in global biogeography, generally in the context of high diversity in tropical regions. In contrast, ‘amphitropical’ or ‘inverse’ distributions, once thought to be unusual, are increasingly recognized as common among many hymenopteran insects. One such group is the ant genus Dorymyrmex, which specializes in arid habitats throughout the Americas. To evaluate when and how Dorymyrmex acquired its present-day distribution, I sequenced partial genomes of 167 Dorymyrmex representing 69 species by targeting ultraconserved elements (UCEs). A matrix of 870 genetic loci was used to infer maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenies, estimate divergence dates and reconstruct hypothesized ancestral areas. These new analyses reveal that Dorymyrmex comprises four species groups, the D. flavescens, tener, wolffhuegeli, and pyramicus groups. The D. pyramicus group likely dispersed from South America to North America only once, via Central America. Like many Hymenoptera, this dispersal occurred before the traditional closure date of the Isthmus of Panama, corroborating and extending the results of previous studies. Finally, I discuss life history strategies of Dorymyrmex that may have contributed to the geographic and genetic radiation of the D. pyramicus group, detail significant insights into Dorymyrmex morphology and classical taxonomy with new comparative illustrations, and provide recommendations for future work.

In recent years, new wasp species and genera of Cynipidae have been described, and their species delimitation and evolutionary relationships have been supported using molecular markers. However, few studies have included comprehensive and extensive sampling of specimens across the complete distribution of a single genus. In this study, we analysed the phylogenetic relationships of the genus Amphibolips throughout its range using ultraconserved elements (UCEs). We collected 520 adult wasps from 401 sites in various geographic locations, predominantly in Mexico, and used 78 wasps for UCE analysis. Our results demonstrate that Amphibolips forms a monophyletic clade. Amphibolips can be further subdivided into four genetically well-differentiated clades. Each clade had morphological traits that could be collectively characterised. Species delimitation using molecular sequencing highlights the taxonomic complexity involved in separating and assigning species using exclusively morphological criteria. This approach offers an opportunity to refine current morphological taxonomic criteria or propose new criteria to establish more accurate classifications. The rich diversity of host species and geographic regions in Mexico represents a biodiversity hotspot for Amphibolips. The number of undescribed species remains high. This study facilitates the determination of appropriate boundaries for putative new Amphibolips species.

New Caledonian crickets of the tribe Lebinthini are renowned for their high endemicity and their use of high-frequency calling songs. Although previous studies have found them to originate from New Guinea around 30 Ma, recent discoveries of new lineages of Lebinthini in New Caledonia and in Australia questioned this result. Here, we describe Kanakinthus koniambo Le Flanchec & Robillard gen. et sp.nov., a new genus and species endemic to New Caledonia. We also describe three new species of the endemic genus Agnothecous: A. anonymous Le Flanchec, Vendanger & Robillard sp.nov., A. borendyi Le Flanchec, Vendanger & Robillard sp.nov. and A. kwakwe Le Flanchec, Vendanger & Robillard sp.nov. We include these new taxa and the Australian Lebinthini in a molecular phylogeny of the subfamily Eneopterinae, estimate their divergence times and reconstruct their historical biogeography. Our results confirm the monophyly of the clade endemic to New Caledonia and its origin from a single colonization event from New Guinea, around 30 Ma, shortly after the archipelago completely re-emerged in its current configuration, 34 Ma. We also infer an independent colonization of Australia by the genus Julverninthus from New Guinea, around 25 Ma.

Universal Single Copy Orthologs (USCOs), as a set of markers of nearly universal single-copy genes, show a superiority in phylogenomic inference. Here, we developed a Benchmarking Universal Single Copy Orthologs (BUSCOs) dataset, neuropterida_odb10, tailored for Neuropterida, based on high-quality genome assemblies and transcriptome data, comprising 5438 BUSCOs. A range of 1524–5328 complete and single-copy USCOs could be captured from the genome assemblies and transcriptomes of 104 species of Neuropterida. The reconstruction of a higher-level phylogeny of Neuropterida based on a comprehensive sampling and refined genomic data in reference to neuropterida_odb10 validates the efficiency of this BUSCO dataset for phylogenomic inference. We recovered Psychopsidae as the sister group to Ithonidae, and corroborated the sister group relationship between Sisyridae and Nevrorthidae within Osmyloidea and the sister group relationship between Chrysopidae and Mantispoidea. Furthermore, our findings highlight that focusing on alignments with a higher presence of parsimony-informative sites, rather than on the total number of alignments, can diminish errors in gene tree estimation, a process notably vulnerable to error when using multispecies coalescent methods. The neuropterida_odb10 BUSCO reference dataset holds promise for phylogenetic studies at various hierarchical levels, as well as for comparative genomics and the exploration of species diversity within Neuropterida.

Recent phylogenetic analyses of anchored-hybrid, transcriptomic and morphological data have consistently recovered a clade comprising the three previously recognized families of treehoppers (Hemiptera), Aetalionidae, Melizoderidae and Membracidae, as well as two groups traditionally included in the leafhopper family Cicadellidae as subfamilies Megophthalminae and Ulopinae. To reconstruct the phylogeny of these two groups of treehopper-like leafhoppers, maximum likelihood and multi-species coalescent analyses were performed on a molecular DNA dataset consisting of ~700 anchored hybrid loci representing 84 terminal taxa. Analyses based on different dataset subsets and approaches yielded largely congruent topologies, although the relationships among Megophthalminae, Ulopinae and treehoppers are still unstable. The monophyly of both subfamilies is strongly supported, but several tribes, including Agalliini, Cephalelini, Megophthalmini and Ulopini, are recovered as non-monophyletic. The origin of Megophthalminae and Ulopinae was estimated as early Cretaceous (~140 million years ago), and the divergence within each subfamily began in the mid-Cretaceous. Continental-scale biogeographic structure is evident in these two groups, with genera occurring on the same continent tending to group together regardless of tribal placement, suggesting that extensive morphological convergence occurred among faunas inhabiting different regions. Ancestral microhabitat reconstruction suggested that megophthalmine and ulopine leafhoppers originally lived on trees or shrubs and later several groups evolved independently to inhabit leaf litter and soil. Convergent modifications of the ocelli, forewings and hindwings accompanied changes in microhabitat preference.

The progressive aridification of the Australian continent, and coincident decline of mesic forest, has been a powerful driver of allopatric and environmental speciation in native species. The relictual mesic forests of the eastern seaboard now harbour a diverse group of endemic fauna, including the wood-feeding cockroaches of the genus Panesthia, which reached the continent via two separate invasions from Melanesia. The more recent of these colonization events gave rise to a group of five recognized species, occurring in mainland woodlands, sclerophylls and rainforests, as well as the forests and grasslands of the Lord Howe Island Group. Due to limited sampling in molecular studies and doubt regarding the standing taxonomy, there is little certainty about relationships among the species and poor understanding of the effects of ancient climatic change upon their evolution. We undertook a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the clade, using complete mitogenomes and nuclear ribosomal markers from nearly all known morphospecies and populations. Our time-calibrated phylogenetic analyses reveal an additional six unrecognized, highly divergent lineages and suggest that these have arisen primarily through vicariance as rainforests fragmented during Plio-Pleistocene glacial cycles (2–5 million years ago). Ancestral niche estimations also evidence a tropical rainforest origin for the group, followed by at least three niche transitions into drier forest, including one associated with the singular colonization of the Lord Howe Island Group. Finally, we find evidence of frequent, parallel wing reduction, in potential association with the contraction of forest habitats into small refugia. Our results reiterate the far-reaching role of ancient aridification in driving speciation, niche expansion and morphological evolution in Australian fauna.

We report the discovery of the first fossil of an Australian species of Pergidae, Baladi warru gen. et sp. n., found at McGraths Flat, a newly discovered Miocene Konservat-Lagerstätte in central New South Wales. Using morphological data from the well-preserved fossil, along with a previously published molecular dataset of 59 taxa and a newly generated molecular dataset for 8 taxa, we constructed a data matrix and generated the first chronogram for Pergidae that incorporates internal calibration points. Our data reveal that Baladi warru belongs to the subfamily Perginae and is closely related to the Australian genera Cerealces and Xyloperga (tribe Cerealcini). According to our analysis, the origin of Pergidae appears slightly younger than previously hypothesised; however, additional calibration points are needed for a more detailed age constraint. Furthermore, ancestral character reconstruction indicates four independent adaptations to toxic Myrtaceae as host plants, while biogeographic analyses suggest that sympatry followed by founder events were the primary processes shaping the current disjunct distribution of pergids. Two significant founder events correspond with transitions to utilising Myrtaceae as host plants. With the approval of the Mudgee Local Aboriginal Land Council, Wiradjuri words were used to name the newly described species. ‘Baladi’ means ‘saw’ and ‘warru’ means ‘wasp’. This name honours the Traditional Owners of the lands on which the fossil was collected.