Episodic radiations in the fly tree of life

By Wook Lambkin, Christine Bertone, M. Cassel, Brian Bayless, Keith M. Heimberg, A. Wheeler, Benjamin M. Peterson, Kevin Pape, Thomas R. Sinclair, Bradley J. Skevington and 28 more. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011

864 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Flies are one of four superradiations of insects (along with beetles, wasps, and moths) that account for the majority of animal life on Earth. Diptera includes species known for their ubiquity (Musca domestica house fly), their role as pests (Anopheles gambiae malaria mosquito), and their value as model organisms across the biological sciences (Drosophila melanogaster). A resolved phylogeny for flies provides a framework for genomic, developmental, and evolutionary studies by facilitating comparisons across model organisms, yet recent research has suggested that fly relationships have been obscured by multiple episodes of rapid diversification. We provide a phylogenomic estimate of fly relationships based on molecules and morphology from 149 of 157 families, including 30 kb from 14 nuclear loci and complete mitochondrial genomes combined with 371 morphological characters. Multiple analyses show support for traditional groups (Brachycera, Cyclorrhapha, and Schizophora) and corroborate contentious findings, such as the anomalous Deuterophlebiidae as the sister group to all remaining Diptera. Our findings reveal that the closest relatives of the Drosophilidae are highly modified parasites (including the wingless Braulidae) of bees and other insects. Furthermore, we use micro-RNAs to resolve a node with implications for the evolution of embryonic development in Diptera. We demonstrate that flies experienced three episodes of rapid radiation—lower Diptera (220 Ma), lower Brachycera (180 Ma), and Schizophora (65 Ma)—and a number of life history transitions to hematophagy, phytophagy, and parasitism in the history of fly evolution over 260 million y.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Genetics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/db72cca61351475a3b3dd1706183bbe800eb0818

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Genetics

Citations in the corpus

Phylogenetic classification of the Drosophilidae Rondani (Diptera): the role of morphology in the postgenomic era (2013, background): “…from the remaining Ephydroidea, whereas the presence of a series of stout, blunt spines on the mesal surface of the forefemur is a synapomorphy for the families Camillidae, Diastatidae and Curtonotidae (Grimaldi, 1990), which have recently been shown to be monophyletic (Wiegmann et al., 2011).”
A dated molecular phylogeny for the Chironomidae (Diptera) (2012, background): “The clade Thaumaleidae + Simuliidae has found support, including Moulton (2000), Grimaldi & Engel (2005) and Wiegmann et al. (2011).”
The phylogenetic relationships among infraorders and superfamilies of Diptera based on morphological evidence (2013, methodology): “The Apystomyiidae, a small family not sampled in this study, were found to be the sister taxon to the © 2012 The Royal Entomological Society, Systematic Entomology, 38, 164–179 Cyclorrhapha in Wiegmann et al. (2011).”
FOSSIL CALIBRATIONS FOR THE ARTHROPOD TREE OF LIFE (2016, background): “A growing number of recent studies have constructed timetrees for arthropods as a whole or for major groups therein (e.g. Bellec and Rabet, 2016; Bond et al., 2014; Bracken-Grissom et al., 2014, 2013; Djernæs et al., 2015; Fernández et al., 2016, 2014; Fernández and Giribet, 2015; Garrison et al., 2”