Phylogenomics provides strong evidence for relationships of butterflies and moths

Abstract

Butterflies and moths constitute some of the most popular and charismatic insects. Lepidoptera include approximately 160 000 described species, many of which are important model organisms. Previous studies on the evolution of Lepidoptera did not confidently place butterflies, and many relationships among superfamilies in the megadiverse clade Ditrysia remain largely uncertain. We generated a molecular dataset with 46 taxa, combining 33 new transcriptomes with 13 available genomes, transcriptomes and expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Using HaMStR with a Lepidoptera-specific coreorthologue set of single copy loci, we identified 2696 genes for inclusion into the phylogenomic analysis. Nucleotides and amino acids of the all-gene, alltaxon dataset yielded nearly identical, well-supported trees. Monophyly of butterflies (Papilionoidea) was strongly supported, and the group included skippers (Hesperiidae) and the enigmatic butterfly-moths (Hedylidae). Butterflies were placed sister to the remaining obtectomeran Lepidoptera, and the latter was grouped with greater than or equal to 87% bootstrap support. Establishing confident relationships among the four most diverse macroheteroceran superfamilies was previously challenging, but we recovered 100% bootstrap support for the following relationships: ((Geometroidea, Noctuoidea), (Bombycoidea, Lasiocampoidea)). We present the first robust, transcriptome-based tree of Lepidoptera that strongly contradicts historical placement of butterflies, and provide an evolutionary framework for genomic, developmental and ecological studies on this diverse insect order.

Paysandisia archon: Behavior, Ecology, and Communication

“…Even though this may be a surprise from a phylogenetic standpoint (Regier et al 2013;Kawahara and Breinholt 2014), it fits well with the exclusive diurnal activity of Paysandisia. …”

Molecular phylogeny of bark and ambrosia beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) based on 18 molecular markers

“…Phylogenomics is rapidly changing the need for an elaborate and time-consuming selection of protein coding genes (Trautwein et al, 2012, Misof et al, 2014, Kawahara and Breinholt, 2014, Crampton-Platt et al, 2015. Next Generation Sequencing technology can provide large amount of data that enable higher level of phylogenetic resolution compared to phylogenies based on few genes obtained with Sanger sequencing technology.…”

Anchored hybrid enrichment provides new insights into the phylogeny and evolution of longhorned beetles (Cerambycidae)

“…Niehuis et al, 2012;Prum et al, 2015), transcriptome sequencing (e.g. Bi et al, 2012;Kawahara & Breinholt, 2014;Misof et al, 2014;Kjer et al, 2015;Lei & Dong, 2016) or target enrichment (e.g. Faircloth et al, 2012;Lemmon et al, 2012;Smith et al, 2014;Brandley et al, 2015;Eytan et al, 2015;Prum et al, 2015;Hamilton et al, 2016;Young et al, 2016;Breinholt et al, 2017), to generate large-scale phylogenomic datasets for use in phylogeny reconstruction, particularly in groups for which relationships have been difficult to resolve using smaller samples of molecular data (see Lemmon & Lemmon, 2013 for a review of alternative approaches).…”