The evolution of Endopterygota - reconstructing the phylogeny of the most successful lineage of organisms with phylogenomic and morphological data
Final Report Abstract
Phylogenetic relationships of holometabolous insects have long been debated. Previous molecular and morphological analyses failed to deliver a robust backbone tree of this group of organisms which constitutes almost 1/3 of all described metazoan animals. Holometabolous insects are characterized by their unique complete metamorphosis after a larval period into the adult organism. In this project we reconstructed a backbone tree of holometabolous insects based on transcriptome sequence data and compared these analyses with reanalyses of extensive morphological data. We can show that with an unprecedented amount of amino-acid sequence data and novel bioinformatic approaches to analyze these data, we are able to reconstruct a robust backbone tree of holometabolous insects. In order to achieve this result, we needed to develop several new tools to perform extensive quality management of the data. Our approach has the potential to deliver new standard tools in phylogenomics. We use the inferred backbone tree to reconstruct the morphology of an ancestral holometabolous larva. This reconstruction of the ancestral holometabolous larva and our reconstruction of robust holometabolous insect relationships delivers entirely new insights into the evolution of holometabolous insects.
Publications
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(2012). Genomic and morphological evidence converge to resolve the enigma of Strepsiptera. Current Biology 22 (14): 1309-1313
Niehuis O, Hartig G, Grath S, Pohl H, Lehmann J, Tafer H, Donath A, Krauss V, Eisenhardt C, Hertel J, Petersen M, Mayer C, Meusemann K, Peters RS, Stadler PF, Beutel RG, Bornberg-Bauer E, McKenna DD, Misof B
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(2012). The morphology and evolution of the female postabdomen of Holometabola (Insecta). Arthropod Structure and Development 41(4): 361-371
Hünefeld F, Mißbach C, Beutel RG
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(2012). The thoracic skeleto-muscular system of Mengenilla (Strepsiptera: Mengenillidae) and its phylogenetic implications. Arthropod Structure and Development 41(4): 323-335
Koeth M, Friedrich F, Pohl H, Beutel RG
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(2013). Insect Morphology and Phylogeny. sDe Gruyter, Berlin, New York
Beutel RG, Friedrich F, Ge S-Q, Yang X-K
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(2013). On the phylogeny and evolution of Mesozoic and extant lineages of Adephaga (Coleoptera, Insecta). Cladistics 29(2): 147-165
Beutel RG, Wang B, Tan J-J, Ge S-Q, Ren D, Yang X-K
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(2013). Super matrix reduction based on information content increases the chance to find a correct sub tree. BMC Bioinformatics 14:348
Misof B, von Reumont, BM, Kück P, Misof K, Meusemann K
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(2013). The Strepsiptera-Odyssey - the history of the systematic placement of an enigmatic parasitic insect order. Entomologia 1(1): e4
Pohl H, Beutel RG
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(2014). Phylogenomics resolves the timing and pattern of insect evolution. Science 346 (6210).763-767
Misof B, et al.
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(2014). The evolutionary history of holometabolous insects inferred from the transcriptome-based phylogeny and comprehensive morphological data. BMC Evolutionary Biology 14:52
Peters RS, Meusemann K, Petersen M, Wilbrandt J, Ziesmann T, Donath A, Mayer Ch, Kjer KM, Aspöck, U, Aspöck H, Aberer A, Stamatakis A, Friedrich F, Hünefeld F, Niehuis O, Beutel RG, Misof B
