Weevils (Curculionoidea) comprise one of the most diverse groups of organisms on earth. There is hardly a vascular plant or plant part without its own species of weevil feeding on it and weevil species diversity is greater than the number of fishes, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals combined. Here, we employ ultraconserved elements (UCEs) designed for beetles and a novel partitioning strategy of loci to help resolve phylogenetic relationships within the radiation of Australasian smurf-weevils (Eupholini). Despite being emblematic of the New Guinea fauna, no previous phylogenetic studies have been conducted on the Eupholini. In addition to a comprehensive collection of fresh specimens, we supplement our taxon sampling with museum specimens, and this study is the first target enrichment phylogenomic dataset incorporating beetle specimens from museum collections. We use both concatenated and species tree analyses to examine the relationships and taxonomy of this group. For species tree analyses we present a novel partitioning strategy to better model the molecular evolutionary process in UCEs. We found that the current taxonomy is problematic, largely grouping species on the basis of similar color patterns. Finally, our results show that most loci required multiple partitions for nucleotide rate substitution, suggesting that single partitions may not be the optimal partitioning strategy to accommodate rate heterogeneity for UCE loci.

The Sunda Arc forms an almost continuous chain of islands and thus a potential dispersal corridor between mainland Southeast Asia and Melanesia. However, the Sunda Islands have rather different geological histories, which might have had an important impact on actual dispersal routes and community assembly. Here, we reveal the biogeographical history of hyperdiverse and flightless Trigonopterus weevils. Different approaches to ancestral area reconstruction suggest a complex east to west range expansion. Out of New Guinea, Trigonopterus repeatedly reached the Moluccas and Sulawesi transgressing Lydekker′s Line. Sulawesi repeatedly acted as colonization hub for different segments of the Sunda Arc. West Java, East Java and Bali are recognized as distinct biogeographic areas. The timing and diversification of species largely coincides with the geological chronology of island emergence. Colonization was not inhibited by traditional biogeographical boundaries such as Wallace’s Line. Rather, colonization patterns support distance dependent dispersal and island age limiting dispersal.

Aim To examine the role of geological history, connectivity and distance in shaping the biogeographical structure of North American desert clades that are restricted to habitat islands (sand dunes and relictual aquatic habitats), using statistical model choice on old and new probabilistic biogeographical models.Location North America, Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts.Materials and methods Dated phylogenies were estimated for three fieldsampled insect clades (Trigonoscuta, Rhaphiomidas and sand treader crickets), and five other literature-sampled clades (the snails Assiminea, Pyrgulopsis and Tryonia; the desert fringe-toed lizard Uma; and the desert pupfish Cyprinodon).BioGeoBEARS was used to statistically compare biogeographical models assuming unconstrained or connectivity-constrained dispersal, with or without founder-event speciation (jump dispersal) permitted. Finally, we introduce and test a novel distance-based dispersal model (+x) where dispersal probability is multiplied by distance to the power x.Results We observed little concordance between biogeographical patterns and timing of geological events. Model comparisons were decidedly in favour of inclusion of founder-event speciation in the models for most taxa, with only a small taxon, Uma, showing support for the model favouring vicariance. The inclusion of a constrained-dispersal matrix was favoured by three of the eight taxa examined (Cyprinodon, sand treader crickets, and Trigonoscuta). Surprisingly, tests for distance influencing dispersal probability were mostly negative. Main conclusionsOur results do not show support for any one geological event shaping the biogeographical patterns of these desert taxa. Instead, the histories of desert dune and aquatic taxa are largely products of rare jump dispersal events, and can be considered island-like systems. Although results are negative for the distance-based dispersal model, this in itself demonstrates the superiority of explicit statistical model testing over a priori assumption of fixed models in historical biogeography.

The underlying mechanisms responsible for the general increase in species richness from temperate regions to the tropics remain equivocal. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain this astonishing pattern but additional empirical studies are needed to shed light on the drivers at work. Here we reconstruct the evolutionary history of the cosmopolitan diving beetle subfamily Colymbetinae, the majority of which are found in the Northern hemisphere, hence exhibiting an inversed latitudinal diversity gradient. We reconstructed a dated phylogeny using 12 genes, to investigate the biogeographical history and diversification dynamics in the Colymbetinae. We aimed to identify the role that phylogenetic niche conservatism plays in the inversed diversification pattern seen in this group. Our results suggest that Colymbetinae originated in temperate climates, which supports the hypothesis that their distribution is the result of an ancestral adaptation to temperate environmental conditions rather than tropical origins, and that temperate niche conservatism can generate and/or maintain inverse latitudinal diversity gradients.

To unravel the postglacial colonization history and the current intercolony dispersal in the common eider, Somateria mollissima, we analysed genetic variation at a part of the mitochondrial control region and five unlinked autosomal microsatellite loci in 175 eiders from 11 breeding colonies, covering the entire European distribution range of this species. As a result of extreme female philopatry, mitochondrial DNA differentiation is substantial both among local colonies and among distant geographical regions. Our study further corroborates the previous hypothesis of a single Pleistocene refugium for European eiders. A nested clade analysis on mitochondrial haplotypes suggests that (i) the Baltic Sea eider population is genetically closest to a presumably ancestral population and that (ii) the postglacial recolonization progressed in a stepwise fashion via the North Sea region and the Faroe Islands to Iceland. Current long-distance dispersal is limited. Differentiation among colonies is much less pronounced at microsatellite loci. The geographical pattern of this nuclear genetic variation is to a large extent explained by isolation by distance. As female dispersal is very limited, the geographical pattern of nuclear variation is probably explained by male-mediated gene flow among breeding colonies. Our study provides genetic evidence for the assumed prominent postglacial colonization route shaping the present terrestrial fauna of the North Atlantic islands Iceland and the Faroes. It suggests that this colonization had been a stepwise process originating in continental Europe. It is the first molecular study on eider duck populations covering their entire European distribution range.

Mites (Acari) are one of the most diverse groups of life on Earth; yet, their evolutionary relationships are poorly understood. Also, the resolution of broader arachnid phylogeny has been hindered by an underrepresentation of mite diversity in phylogenomic analyses. To further our understanding of Acari evolution, we design targeted ultraconserved genomic elements (UCEs) probes, intended for resolving the complex relationships between mite lineages and closely related arachnids. We then test our Acari UCE baits in‐silico by constructing a phylogeny using 13 existing Acari genomes, as well as 6 additional taxa from a variety of genomic sources. Our Acari‐specific probe kit improves the recovery of loci within mites over an existing general arachnid UCE probe set. Our initial phylogeny recovers the major mite lineages, yet finds mites to be non‐monophyletic overall, with Opiliones (harvestmen) and Ricinuleidae (hooded tickspiders) rendering Parasitiformes paraphyletic.

Despite the dominance of terrestriality in spiders, species across a diverse array of families are associated with aquatic habitats. Many species in the spider family Dictynidae are associated with water, either living near it or, in the case of Argyroneta aquatica, in it. Previous studies have indicated that this association arose once within the family. Here we test the hypothesis of a single origin via the broadest phylogeny of dictynids and related ‘marronoids’ to date, using several taxa that were not previously sampled in molecular analyses to provide the first quantitative test of the hypothesis put forth by Wheeler et al. (2016). We sampled 281 terminal taxa from 14 families, assembling a matrix with 4380 total base pairs of data from most taxa. We also assembled an atlas of morphological traits with potential significance for both ecology and taxonomy. Our resulting trees indicate that an aquatic habitat association has arisen multiple times within dictynids. Dictynidae and the genus Dictyna are polyphyletic and the genera Lathys and Cicurina remain unplaced. A review of aquatic habitat associations in spiders indicates that it occurs in members of at least 21 families. With our morphological atlas, we explore characters that have been implicated in aiding an aquatic lifestyle, which in the past may have caused confusion regarding taxon placement. Our results indicate that not all spiders with traits thought to be useful for aquatic habitat associations occupy such habitats, and that some spider taxa lacking these traits are nonetheless associated with water.

19Ultraconserved genomic elements (UCEs), are generally treated as independent 20 loci in phylogenetic analyses. The identification pipeline for UCE probes is agnostic to 21 genetic identity, only selecting loci that are highly conserved, single copy, without 22 repeats, and of a particular length. Here we characterized UCEs from 12 phylogenomic 23 studies across the animal tree of life, from birds to marine invertebrates. We found that 24 within vertebrate lineages, UCEs are mostly intronic and intergenic, while in 25 invertebrates, the majority are in exons. We then curated 4 different sets of UCE 26 markers by genomic category from 5 different studies including; birds, mammals, fish, 27Hymenoptera (ants, wasps and bees) and Coleoptera (beetles). Of genes captured by 28UCEs, we find that many are represented by 2 or more UCEs, corresponding to non-29 overlapping segments of a single gene. We considered these UCEs to be non-30 independent, merged all UCEs that belonged to a particular gene, constructed gene and 31 species trees, and then evaluated the subsequent effect of merging co-genic UCEs on 32 gene and species tree reconstruction. Average bootstrap support for merged UCE gene 33 trees were significantly improved across all datasets. Increased loci length appears to 34 drive this increase in bootstrap support. Additionally, we found that gene trees 35 generated from merged UCEs were more accurate than those generated by unmerged 36 and randomly merged UCEs, based on our simulation study. This modest degree of 37 UCE characterization and curation impacts downstream analyses and demonstrates the 38 advantages of incorporating basic genomic characterizations into phylogenomic 39 analyses. 40 41 3