Comparative thorax morphology of death-feigning flightless cryptorhynchine weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) based on 3D reconstructions

Kamp, Thomas van de; Cecilia, A.; Rolo, Tomy dos Santos; Vagovič, Patrik; Baumbach, Tilo; Riedel, Alexander

doi:10.1016/j.asd.2015.07.004

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…(Riedel et al 2016, Letsch et al 2020a extends from Singapore in the west to Samoa in the east, encompassing the entire IAA and West Pacific Islands, with usually narrow endemic species, each occupying a range of less than 100 km in diameter (Tänzler et al 2012, Riedel andNarakusumo 2019). All species are apterous and heavily sclerotized as adults (Van de Kamp et al 2015). Therefore, colonization of new areas across the IAA has been hypothesized to result from passive dispersal in flotsam supported by ocean currents (Tänzler et al 2014, Yeh et al 2018.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transgressing Wallace's Line brings hyperdiverse weevils down to earth

et al. 2020

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Wallace's Line, located in the heart of the Indo‐Australian archipelago, has historically been hypothesized to strongly inhibit dispersal. Taxa crossing this barrier are confronted with different biota of Asian or Australian origin, respectively, but the extent to which these conditions have affected the evolution of the colonizing lineages remains largely unknown. We examined the potential correlations of body size, lifestyle and biogeographical distribution in the weevil genus Trigonopterus. These beetles are highly diverse both on foliage and in litter east of Wallace's Line but occur exclusively in leaf litter in the west. Based on a comprehensive, dated phylogeny of 303 species, we inferred nine crossing events of Wallace's Line, all from east to west. Five previously foliage‐dwelling lineages changed their lifestyle to leaf litter habitats after crossing this barrier. Our results indicate that dispersal is not more likely in edaphic lineages, but rather that abiotic and/or biotic factors may be responsible for the exclusive leaf litter habitat of Trigonopterus in Sundaland. This includes differences in climate, and the different predatory faunas of Australia‐New Guinea, Wallacea and Sundaland. A mimicry complex in New Guinea with Trigonopterus species as presumable model may be of relevance in this context.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transgressing Wallace's Line brings hyperdiverse weevils down to earth

et al. 2020

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“…peculiar microstructure of densely interlocked exocuticle and endocuticle, which may be relevant to the mechanical strength of their exoskeleton (48,49). Whether the symbiont-provisioned tyrosine contributes to formation of the cuticular structure, and if so, how, is of interest and open to future investigation.…”

Section: Nardonella As An Ancient Symbiont Specialized For Provisioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small genome symbiont underlies cuticle hardness in beetles

Anbutsu

Moriyama

Nikoh

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

157

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Beetles, representing the majority of the insect species diversity, are characterized by thick and hard cuticle, which plays important roles for their environmental adaptation and underpins their inordinate diversity and prosperity. Here, we report a bacterial endosymbiont extremely specialized for sustaining beetle’s cuticle formation. Many weevils are associated with a γ-proteobacterial endosymbiont lineage Nardonella, whose evolutionary origin is estimated as older than 100 million years, but its functional aspect has been elusive. Sequencing of Nardonella genomes from diverse weevils unveiled drastic size reduction to 0.2 Mb, in which minimal complete gene sets for bacterial replication, transcription, and translation were present but almost all of the other metabolic pathway genes were missing. Notably, the only metabolic pathway retained in the Nardonella genomes was the tyrosine synthesis pathway, identifying tyrosine provisioning as Nardonella’s sole biological role. Weevils are armored with hard cuticle, tyrosine is the principal precursor for cuticle formation, and experimental suppression of Nardonella resulted in emergence of reddish and soft weevils with low tyrosine titer, confirming the importance of Nardonella-mediated tyrosine production for host’s cuticle formation and hardening. Notably, Nardonella’s tyrosine synthesis pathway was incomplete, lacking the final step transaminase gene. RNA sequencing identified host’s aminotransferase genes up-regulated in the bacteriome. RNA interference targeting the aminotransferase genes induced reddish and soft weevils with low tyrosine titer, verifying host’s final step regulation of the tyrosine synthesis pathway. Our finding highlights an impressively intimate and focused aspect of the host–symbiont metabolic integrity via streamlined evolution for a single biological function of ecological relevance.

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“…[31] established this technique in insect morphology in 2002. µCT combines user friendliness with powerful computational applications to study small- to medium-sized insects. Meanwhile, there are numerous comprehensive studies investigating each tagma of insects: insect head [32,33], insect thorax [27,34], insect abdomen [35,36] and even smaller body parts [5,37]. The advantages of μCT are that it is non-invasive, comparatively rapid, almost free of artefacts, and allow for a three-dimensional reconstruction at convenient nanotomographical resolutions less than 0.1 µm [21] depending on the set-up used for data acquisition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-dimensional reconstruction on cell level: case study elucidates the ultrastructure of the spinning apparatus of Embia sp. (Insecta: Embioptera)

2016

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Spinning is a phenomenon not only present in spiders, but also in many other arthropods. The functional morphology and complexity of spinning organs is often poorly understood. Their elements are minute and studying them poses substantial methodological difficulties. This study presents a three-dimensional reconstruction of a silk gland of Embia sp. on cellular level, based on serial sections acquired with serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBFSEM) to showcase the power of this method. Previous studies achieved either high resolution to elucidate the ultrastructure or satisfying three-dimensional representations. The high-resolution achieved by SBFSEM can be easily used to reconstruct the three-dimensional ultrastructural organization of cellular structures. The herein investigated spinning apparatus of Embioptera can be taken as an example demonstrating the potential of this method. It was possible to reconstruct a multinucleated silk gland containing 63 nuclei. We focused on the applicability of this method in the field of morphological research and provide a step-by-step guide to the methodology. This will help in applying the method to other arthropod taxa and will help significantly in adapting the method to other animals, animal parts and tissues.

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Comparative thorax morphology of death-feigning flightless cryptorhynchine weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) based on 3D reconstructions

Cited by 24 publications

References 37 publications

Transgressing Wallace's Line brings hyperdiverse weevils down to earth

Transgressing Wallace's Line brings hyperdiverse weevils down to earth

Small genome symbiont underlies cuticle hardness in beetles

Three-dimensional reconstruction on cell level: case study elucidates the ultrastructure of the spinning apparatus of Embia sp. (Insecta: Embioptera)

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