The evolution and biogeography of the austral horse fly tribe Scionini (Diptera: Tabanidae: Pangoniinae) inferred from multiple mitochondrial and nuclear genes

Abstract

Phylogenetic relationships within the Tabanidae are largely unknown, despite their considerable medical and ecological importance. The first robust phylogenetic hypothesis for the horse fly tribe Scionini is provided, completing the systematic placement of all tribes in the subfamily Pangoniinae. The Scionini consists of seven mostly southern hemisphere genera distributed in Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and South America. A 5757 bp alignment of 6 genes, including mitochondrial (COI and COII), ribosomal (28S) and nuclear (AATS and CAD regions 1, 3 and 4) genes, was analysed for 176 taxa using both Bayesian and maximum likelihood approaches. Results indicate the Scionini are strongly monophyletic, with the exclusion of the only northern hemisphere genus Goniops. The South American genera Fidena, Pityocera and Scione were strongly monophyletic, corresponding to current morphology-based classification schemes. The most widespread genus Scaptia was paraphyletic and formed nine strongly supported monophyletic clades, each corresponding to either the current subgenera or several previously synonymised genera that should be formally resurrected. Molecular results also reveal a newly recognised genus endemic to New Zealand, formerly placed within Scaptia. Divergence time estimation was employed to assess the global biogeographical patterns in the Pangoniinae. These analyses demonstrated that the Scionini are a typical Gondwanan group whose diversification was influenced by the fragmentation of that ancient land mass. Furthermore, results indicate that the Scionini most likely originated in Australia and subsequently radiated to New Zealand and South American by both long distance dispersal and vicariance. The phylogenetic framework of the Scionini provided herein will be valuable for taxonomic revisions of the Tabanidae.

Puyehuemyia chandleri, gen. nov., sp. nov. (Diptera: Opetiidae): Remnant of a Cretaceous Biota in Chile

“…More recently, Almeida et al (2012) demonstrated that the latest cladogeneses between South American and Australian elements of colletid bees occurred about 30 million years ago. This was later corroborated with results in scionini tabanid evolution (Lessard et al, 2013).…”

Say goodbye to tribes in the new house fly classification: A new molecular phylogenetic analysis and an updated biogeographical narrative for the Muscidae (Diptera)

“…PCR used primers (all at 10nmol/µl) previously published or designed for this study (Supplementary Table 2) and reactions used TaKaRa Ex Taq (Takara Bio, Shiga, Japan) following manufacturer's recommendations and the protocol of Lessard et al (2013). In PCR for CO1, 1µl of primer and 0.8µl of DNA were used, and for nuclear genes, 2µl of primer, 1µl of DNA and 2µl of MgCl 2 , for a total volume of 49µl.…”

“…This narrative, mixing vicariance and dispersal, has recently been suggested for other, strictly southern organisms. For example, in flies, the Pagoniinae (subfamily of Tabanidae, Lessard et al 2013), and bees, the family Colletidae (Almeida et al 2012). …”

Out of Africa: evidence of the obligate mutualism between long corolla tubed plant and long‐tongued fly in the Himalayas

“…Because radiation of gingers and tabanid flies both occurred in late Cretaceous, similar to many other genera of plants and animals, their diversification toward the Indian plate is thus linked with Gondwana separation (Kress and Specht ; Lessard et al. ). Further radiation and speciation in Zingiberaceae, following the collision between Indian and Eurasian plate in the last 50 Ma, led to the evolution of long corolla tubed genus Roscoea from relatively shorter corolla tube genus Hedychium in the Himalayas (Ngamriabsakul et al.…”