Phylogeny of a cosmopolitan family of morphologically conserved trapdoor spiders (Mygalomorphae, Ctenizidae) using Anchored Hybrid Enrichment, with a description of the family, Halonoproctidae Pocock 1901

Total‐evidence analysis of an undescribed fauna: resolving the evolution and classification of Australia’s golden trapdoor spiders (Idiopidae: Arbanitinae: Euoplini)

“…Bond and Platnick, 2007; Decae, 2012; Siliwal et al, 2015), and leg I spination and scopulation (e.g. Rix et al, 2017a; Godwin et al, 2018; RíoRíos‐Tamayo and Goloboff, 2018). A notable discovery, however, was that within the Euoplini, spination patterns on different regions of leg I show distinctly different phylogenetic patterns.…”

“…Resolving the higher-level systematics of the Australasian spiny trapdoor spiders (family Idiopidae, subfamily Arbanitinae) has been a gradual process over more than three decades, involving several large-scale "reshuffles" in which genera have been redefined and relimited (Main, 1985;Raven and Wishart, 2005;Rix et al, 2017d). Following the trend seen in mygalomorph systematics at all phylogenetic levels (see, e.g., Hedin and Bond, 2006;Bond et al, 2012;Godwin et al, 2018;Hedin et al, 2018Hedin et al, , 2019Opatova et al, 2020), classifications within the Arbanitinae based on morphological data (Main, 1985;Raven, 1985;Raven and Wishart, 2005) recently have been refined and extended using molecular phylogenetic approaches (Rix et al, 2017b, d). In 2017, a molecular phylogeny of the subfamily that included the type species of all genera recognized at the time, as well as a wide selection of described and undescribed species in each genus, facilitated a comprehensive generic relimitation (Rix et al, 2017b, d).…”

“…Combining multiple data types into a single total‐evidence analysis can allow a researcher to overcome issues associated with each individual datatype. In the case of the Euoplini, analyzing molecular data alone would mean leaving out taxa for which a molecular exemplar is not available, but using morphological data alone also would be challenging, as mygalomorph spiders are notorious for their relatively conservative body plans (see Raven, 1985; Hedin and Bond, 2006; Bond et al, 2012; Leavitt et al, 2015; Godwin et al, 2018; Opatova et al, 2020). By combining these data types in a total‐evidence framework, available characters from all taxa can be included, and the topology of the resulting phylogeny can be driven by both molecular and morphological phylogenetic signal—thereby mitigating the shortcomings of each individual datatype.…”

Barcode Taxonomy at the Genus Level

“…Barcodes were originally introduced as a means to enable rapid identification of specimens at the species level (Barrett & Hebert 2005, Hebert et al 2003, and they are particularly useful for identifying Ecologica Montenegrina 21: 17-37 (2019) This journal is available online at: www.biotaxa.org/em cryptic species diversity (e.g., Fišer et al, 2018, Janzen et al 2017, Ortiz & Francke 2016, Xu et al 2015, Hamilton et al 2011 and for identifying specimens in taxonomically difficult groups (e.g., Blagoev & Dondale 2014, Planas & Ribera 2015, Marusik et al 2018, Mendoza & Francke 2017, Luong et al 2016, Sim et al 2014, Nadolny et al 2016, Ballesteros & Hormiga 2018, including immature specimens of spiders, or matching males and females collected separately (e.g., Magalhães et al 2017). However, species identification regularly fails for very recently diverged groups, possibly because of incomplete lineage sorting or as a result of hybrid introgression (e.g., Astrin et al 2016, Spasojevic et al 2016, Oxford & Bolzern 2018, and it is also not suitable for elucidating relationships between widely diverged groups, where the much larger DNA datasets acquired by phylogenomic methods have recently enabled major advances (Wheeler et al, 2017, Hedin et al 2018, Godwin et al 2018, Kallal et al 2018, Garrsion et al 2016, Bond et al 2014, Fernández et al 2014. If barcodes fail at the lowest taxonomic level (separation of sibling species), as well as at the highest levels (identification of relationships between families), it is tempting to explore their potential for elucidating affinities at intermediate levels, specifically as a complementary source of data to validate or refute taxonomic decisions at the genus level (Coddington et al 2016).…”

Golden Orbweavers Ignore Biological Rules: Phylogenomic and Comparative Analyses Unravel a Complex Evolution of Sexual Size Dimorphism

“…These loci have been shown to possess sufficient variation for resolving both shallow and deep-scale evolutionary relationships throughout the Araneae. Hamilton et al (2016b), Maddison et al (2017), and Godwin et al (2018) have used AHE to recover genus and species-level relationships within spider families, Theraphosidae, Salticidae, and Halonoproctidae/Ctenizidae.…”