New World biogeography and the evolution of polychromatism: evidence from the bee assassin genus Apiomerus (Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Harpactorinae)

Abstract

The crassipes and pictipes species groups of Apiomerus Hahn together contain 12 species, many with high intraspecific chromatic variability, which represent the majority of Nearctic species in this New World assassin bug genus. Because of their geographical distribution and their varying degrees of polychromatism, these two species groups provide a unique opportunity to study the evolution of polychromatism and analyse relationships among areas of endemism in the Nearctic, as well as determine the boundary between the Nearctic and Neotropical regions. The results of a morphology based phylogenetic analysis allowed investigation of these questions while also determining relationships among the 12 species in the two species groups. The crassipes and pictipes species groups were each supported as monophyletic and as sister taxa. Apiomerus rufipennis (Fallou) was not included in the original concept of the crassipes species group, but is shown here to be a member of the group. Apiomerus barrocoloradoi Forero, Berniker & Szerlip, which had been hypothesized previously to belong to the pictipes species group, is excluded from this group. Intraspecific polychromatism for each species was identified as being present in one of three states: no polychromatism; limited polychromatism; or polychromatism as discrete colour morphs. Limited polychromatism was here found to be the ancestral state for Apiomerus, and species with discrete colour morphs are restricted to the crassipes and pictipes species groups. Polychromatism appears to be a greatly homoplastic character within the genus. A Brooks parsimony analysis recovered distinct Nearctic and Neotropical clades. The Nearctic clade is divided between areas in the central and eastern U.S.A. and areas in the Western U.S.A. and Mexico. The Nearctic–Neotropical boundary for the taxa included in the analysis is along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico.

Classification and Biogeography of Neotropical True Bugs

“…Their results support the limits between the Neotropical and Nearctic regions along the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Mexico), congruent with previous biogeographical analyses for New World insects (e.g., Halffter 1987 ;Morrone and Marquez 2001 ). Under a Brooks's parsimony analysis (BPA), Berniker and Weirauch ( 2012 ) corroborate the relationship between Chiapan-Guatemalan Highlands, Talamancan Cordillera, and northwest South American areas and together are sister to the remainder of the Neotropics; this pattern was found by previous studies, such as Amorim and Pires ( 1996 ) and Amorim ( 2001 ). However, this assertion must be taken cautiously, since the authors did not use a BPA area classifi cation with the intent of testing the assumptions of Amorim and Pires ( 1996 ) of an Amazonia composed of two distinct biotic components.…”

“…The bee assassin crassipes and pictipes species groups of Apiomerus Hahn (Reduviidae: Harpactorinae) were studied by Berniker and Weirauch ( 2012 ). They used the phylogeny to explore biogeographic patterns of 12 species and determine the boundary between Nearctic and Neotropical areas of endemism.…”

“…Within the Cimicomorpha, expanded the Cimiciformes to include the Joppeicidae, Microphysidae, Velocipedidae, and Curaliidae; the monophyly of Miroidea, Cimicoidea, Reduviidae, Tingidae, and Miridae were corroborated. At family level or lower levels, families such as the Miridae (Weirauch and Schuh 2010 ), Reduviidae (Paula et al 2005(Paula et al , 2007Weirauch 2008 ;Weirauch and Munro 2009 ;Hwang and Weirauch 2012 ), and Tingidae (Montemayor and Costa 2009 ;Guilbert 2012a , b ;Guilbert et al 2014 ) were analyzed phylogenetically, and the Reduviidae has been the focus of studies on comparative morphological and behavioral evolution (Berniker and Weirauch 2012 ;Zhang and Weirauch 2013 ).…”

Molecular phylogeny of Harpactorinae and Bactrodinae uncovers complex evolution of sticky trap predation in assassin bugs (Heteroptera: Reduviidae)

“…However, due to poor taxon sampling of sticky trap predators, the timing of events involved in sticky trap predation cannot be deduced from that analysis. Biogeographical analyses of Reduviidae have so far focused on specific tribes, genera or species‐groups (Morrone and Coscarón, ; De Paula et al., ; Berniker and Weirauch, ), but have not been conducted for larger clades. Self‐sticky Harpactorini are monophyletic and restricted to the New World (Zhang and Weirauch, ), but both the resin trap strategy and scavenging from sticky‐trichome plants occur in the New and Old Worlds.…”

A revision of Evaniscus (Hymenoptera, Evaniidae) using ontology-based semantic phenotype annotation

“…Some insects exhibit varying levels of intraspecific polychromatism or heterochromatism. For example, Berniker and Weirauch (2012) identified species of the reduviid genus Apiomerus that exhibit intraspecific polychromatism; some species showed discrete color morphs while others showed only limited polychromatism in the pronotum and the corium. Some individuals of Apiomerus californicus collected along the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California showed an increased red pigmentation, which suggested a possible correlation between color variation and elevation.…”