In this study, we reconstruct the first time-calibrated phylogeny of the iconic antlion family, the Myrmeleontidae (Neuroptera: Myrmeleontiformia). We use maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference to analyse a molecular dataset based on seven mitochondrial and nuclear gene markers. The dataset encompasses 106 species of Neuroptera, including 94 antlion species. The resulting phylogenetic framework provides support for a myrmeleontid classification distinguishing four subfamilies: Acanthaclisinae, Myrmeleontinae, Palparinae, and Stilbopteryginae. Within Myrmeleontinae, Myrmecaelurini and Nemoleontini are recovered as monophyletic clades; Gepini also appears as a valid tribe, distinct from Myrmecaelurini whereas Myrmecaelurini and Nesoleontini on one hand and Brachynemurini and Dendroleontini on the other hand, appear closely related. Some preliminary information related to generic and specific levels are also implied from our results, such as the paraphyly of several genera. Dating analyses based on thoroughly evaluated fossil calibrations indicate that the antlion family likely originated in the Cretaceous, between 135 and 138 million years ago (depending on the set of fossil calibrations), and that all higher-level lineages appeared during the Early Cretaceous. This first phylogenetic hypothesis will provide a valuable basis to further expand the taxonomic coverage and molecular sampling, and to lay the foundations of future systematic revisions.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2016.10.014 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Biogeographic Insights Into the Late Miocene Diversification of the Giant Deep-Ocean Amphipod .
Ecol Evol
January 2025
Instituto Milenio de Oceanografía (IMO) Universidad de Concepción Concepción Chile.
Mechanisms driving the spatial and temporal patterns of species distribution in the Earth's largest habitat, the deep ocean, remain largely enigmatic. The late Miocene to the Pliocene (~23-2.58 Ma) is a period that was marked by significant geological, climatic, and oceanographic changes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChallenges in estimating species' age from phylogenetic trees.
Glob Ecol Biogeogr
October 2024
Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Aim: Species age, the elapsed time since origination, can give insight into how species longevity might influence eco-evolutionary dynamics, which has been hypothesized to influence extinction risk. Traditionally, species' ages have been estimated from fossil records. However, numerous studies have recently used the branch lengths of time-calibrated phylogenies as estimates of the ages of extant species.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComparative diversification analyses of Hydrangeaceae and Loasaceae reveal complex evolutionary history as species disperse out of Mesoamerica.
Am J Bot
January 2025
School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, 99164, Washington, USA.
Article Synopsis
- The study explores how intercontinental movements of certain plant lineages (Hydrangeaceae and Loasaceae) may promote ecological opportunities and species diversity.
- Researchers reconstructed a phylogeny using molecular data and analyzed speciation rates, finding that while some clades showed increased diversification, it wasn't linked to new continental colonization.
- The findings suggest that climate change in the Miocene played a more significant role in species diversification rather than dispersal across continents, indicating that changes in habitats drove evolutionary changes instead of location shifts.
HIPSTR: highest independent posterior subtree reconstruction in TreeAnnotator X.
bioRxiv
December 2024
Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
In Bayesian phylogenetic and phylodynamic studies it is common to summarise the posterior distribution of trees with a time-calibrated consensus phylogeny. While the maximum clade credibility (MCC) tree is often used for this purpose, we here show that a novel consensus tree method - the highest independent posterior subtree reconstruction, or HIPSTR - contains consistently higher supported clades over MCC. We also provide faster computational routines for estimating both consensus trees in an updated version of TreeAnnotator X, an open-source software program that summarizes the information from a sample of trees and returns many helpful statistics such as individual clade credibilities contained in the consensus tree.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTime-calibrated phylogeny of neotropical freshwater fishes.
Front Bioinform
December 2024
Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, United States.
Neotropical Freshwater Fish (NFF) fauna exhibits the greatest phenotypic disparity and species richness among all continental aquatic vertebrate faunas, with more than 6,345 species distributed across the mostly tropical regions of Central and South America. The last two decades have seen a proliferation of molecular phylogenies, often at the species level, covering almost all 875 valid NFF genera. This study presents the most comprehensive genome-wide, time-calibrated phylogenetic hypothesis of NFF species to date, based on DNA sequences generated over decades through the collaborative efforts of the multinational ichthyological research community.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!