TY - JOUR
T1 - A comprehensive molecular phylogeny of tiger beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Cicindelinae)
AU - Gough, Harlan M.
AU - Duran, Daniel P.
AU - Kawahara, Akito Y.
AU - Toussaint, Emmanuel F.A.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank three anonymous reviewers and the editorial board for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank Graeme Cocks for allowing us to use his unpublished sequences of Distipsidera flavipes and Myriochila semicincta. We thank Chandra Earl for help during data processing. We also thank Bernard Dupont, Yasuoki Takami, Ken Hickman, David Maddison, Tyus Ma, Michel Candel, Andreas Kay, Malcolm Tattersall, Dave Rogers, Costán Escuer, Dinesh Valke, Jason Lambert, Josh Kouri, Jinze Noordijk, Eduard Jendek, Jesús Tizón Taracido, John Horstman / itchydogimages, Len Worthington, Jee & Rani Nature Photography, Kevin Stohlgren, Jon Moore, Mathew Brust, Robin Holler, Udo Schmidt and William Hull for allowing the use of their pictures in this study. We acknowledge the University of Florida Research Computing for providing computational resources and support that contributed to the research results reported in this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Royal Entomological Society
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Tiger beetles are a remarkable group that captivates amateur entomologists, taxonomists and evolutionary biologists alike. This diverse clade of beetles comprises about 2300 currently described species found across the globe. Despite the charisma and scientific interest of this lineage, remarkably few studies have examined its phylogenetic relationships with large taxon sampling. Prior phylogenetic studies have focused on relationships within cicindeline tribes or genera, and none of the studies have included sufficient taxon sampling to conclusively examine broad species patterns across the entire subfamily. Studies that have attempted to reconstruct higher-level relationships of Cicindelinae have yielded conflicting results. Here, we present the first taxonomically comprehensive molecular phylogeny of Cicindelinae to date, with the goal of creating a framework for future studies focusing on this important insect lineage. We utilized all available published molecular data, generating a final concatenated dataset including 328 cicindeline species, with molecular data sampled from six protein-coding gene fragments and three ribosomal gene fragments. Our maximum-likelihood phylogenetic inferences recover Cicindelinae as sister to the wrinkled bark beetles of the subfamily Rhysodinae. This new phylogenetic hypothesis for Cicindelinae contradicts our current understanding of tiger beetle phylogenetic relationships, with several tribes, subtribes and genera being inferred as paraphyletic. Most notably, the tribe Manticorini is recovered nested within Platychilini including the genera Amblycheila Say, Omus Eschscholtz, Picnochile Motschulsky and Platychile Macleay. The tribe Megacephalini is recovered as paraphyletic due to the placement of the monophyletic subtribe Oxycheilina as sister to Cicindelini, whereas the monophyletic Megacephalina is inferred as sister to Oxycheilina, Cicindelini and Collyridini. The tribe Collyridini is paraphyletic with the subtribes Collyridina and Tricondylina in one clade, and Ctenostomina in a second one. The tribe Cicindelini is recovered as monophyletic although several genera are inferred as para- or polyphyletic. Our results provide a novel phylogenetic framework to revise the classification of tiger beetles and to encourage the generation of focused molecular datasets that will permit investigation of the evolutionary history of this lineage through space and time.
AB - Tiger beetles are a remarkable group that captivates amateur entomologists, taxonomists and evolutionary biologists alike. This diverse clade of beetles comprises about 2300 currently described species found across the globe. Despite the charisma and scientific interest of this lineage, remarkably few studies have examined its phylogenetic relationships with large taxon sampling. Prior phylogenetic studies have focused on relationships within cicindeline tribes or genera, and none of the studies have included sufficient taxon sampling to conclusively examine broad species patterns across the entire subfamily. Studies that have attempted to reconstruct higher-level relationships of Cicindelinae have yielded conflicting results. Here, we present the first taxonomically comprehensive molecular phylogeny of Cicindelinae to date, with the goal of creating a framework for future studies focusing on this important insect lineage. We utilized all available published molecular data, generating a final concatenated dataset including 328 cicindeline species, with molecular data sampled from six protein-coding gene fragments and three ribosomal gene fragments. Our maximum-likelihood phylogenetic inferences recover Cicindelinae as sister to the wrinkled bark beetles of the subfamily Rhysodinae. This new phylogenetic hypothesis for Cicindelinae contradicts our current understanding of tiger beetle phylogenetic relationships, with several tribes, subtribes and genera being inferred as paraphyletic. Most notably, the tribe Manticorini is recovered nested within Platychilini including the genera Amblycheila Say, Omus Eschscholtz, Picnochile Motschulsky and Platychile Macleay. The tribe Megacephalini is recovered as paraphyletic due to the placement of the monophyletic subtribe Oxycheilina as sister to Cicindelini, whereas the monophyletic Megacephalina is inferred as sister to Oxycheilina, Cicindelini and Collyridini. The tribe Collyridini is paraphyletic with the subtribes Collyridina and Tricondylina in one clade, and Ctenostomina in a second one. The tribe Cicindelini is recovered as monophyletic although several genera are inferred as para- or polyphyletic. Our results provide a novel phylogenetic framework to revise the classification of tiger beetles and to encourage the generation of focused molecular datasets that will permit investigation of the evolutionary history of this lineage through space and time.
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U2 - 10.1111/syen.12324
DO - 10.1111/syen.12324
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052462561
VL - 44
SP - 305
EP - 321
JO - Systematic Entomology
JF - Systematic Entomology
SN - 0307-6970
IS - 2
ER -