The “sexy shrimp”
Coral reefs in all tropical oceans.
Specimens of
We found evidence for at least five cryptic lineages (9%–22%
The “sexy shrimp”
Coral reefs in all tropical oceans.
Specimens of
We found evidence for at least five cryptic lineages (9%–22%
The jaguar (Panthera onca) is the largest living cat species native to the Americas and one of few large American carnivorans to have survived into the Holocene. However, the extent to which jaguar diversity declined during the end-Pleistocene extinction event remains unclear. For example, Pleistocene jaguar fossils from North America are notably larger than the average extant jaguar, leading to hypotheses that jaguars from this continent represent a now-extinct subspecies (Panthera onca augusta) or species (Panthera augusta). Here, we used a hybridization capture approach to recover an ancient mitochondrial genome from a large, late Pleistocene jaguar from Kingston Saltpeter Cave, Georgia, United States, which we sequenced to 26-fold coverage. We then estimated the evolutionary relationship between the ancient jaguar mitogenome and those from other extinct and living large felids, including multiple jaguars sampled across the species’ current range. The ancient mitogenome falls within the diversity of living jaguars. All sampled jaguar mitogenomes share a common mitochondrial ancestor ~400 thousand years ago, indicating that the lineage represented by the ancient specimen dispersed into North America from the south at least once during the late Pleistocene. While genomic data from additional and older specimens will continue to improve understanding of Pleistocene jaguar diversity in the Americas, our results suggest that this specimen falls within the variation of extant jaguars despite the relatively larger size and geographic location and does not represent a distinct taxon.
The biogeography of colletid bees as a whole can be explained by several South American‐Australian trans‐Antarctic interchanges. Within Colletidae, neopasiphaeine bees form a large group that has not been adequately studied, even though they are interesting both from the biogeographical viewpoint for fitting well the austral Gondwanan track and for their associations to host plants. The present paper integrates phylogenetic, biogeographic and paleontological data to reconstruct the evolutionary history of Neopasiphaeinae, with special emphasis on the New World taxa, relating the evolution of these bees to changes, such as the Andes uplift and expansion of open vegetation biomes. First, we propose a phylogenetic hypothesis for the Neopasiphaeinae using one mitochondrial and five nuclear loci. Phylogenetic relationships and divergence time estimation were simultaneously inferred in a Bayesian framework, and the tempo of neopasiphaeine diversification was investigated using lineage‐through‐time plots. The historical biogeography of neopasiphaeine bees was investigated in a likelihood framework. The clade represented by Neopasiphaeinae is strongly supported within Colletidae, and the bulk of their genera can be divided into two major sister‐clades that diverged during the Eocene: one endemic to the Australian region and the other to the Neotropical region. Divergence times among most neotropical genera of Neopasiphaeinae indicate that they differentiated and started their diversification during the Miocene. Our results depict a complex process of geographic evolution in the Neotropical clade, which probably relates to important changes in the neotropical climates and biota beginning at the Oligocene and became more marked in the Miocene. We present a scenario of the neotropical Neopasiphaeinae initially associated with areas of open vegetation in subtropical and temperate portions of South America, followed by multiple separations of lineages east and west of the Andes, and more recent occupations of habitats in tropical portions of the continent.
We present a phylogeographic study of at least six reproductively isolated lineages of new world harvester ants within the
We sought to illuminate the history of the arachnid orders Schizomida and Uropygi, neither of which have previously been subjected to global molecular phylogenetic and biogeographical analyses.
Specimens used in this study were collected in all major tropical and subtropical areas where they are presently found, including the Americas, Africa, Australia and the Indo‐Pacific region.
From field‐collected specimens, we sequenced two nuclear and two mitochondrial markers, combined these with publicly available data, and conducted multi‐gene phylogenetic analyses on 240 Schizomida, 24 Uropygi and 12 other arachnid outgroups. Schizomid specimens included one specimen from the small family Protoschizomidae; other schizomid specimens were in Hubbardiidae, subfamily Hubbardiinae, which holds 289 of the order's 305 named species. We inferred ancestral areas using the Dispersal‐Extinction‐Cladogenesis model of range evolution, and we used fossil calibrations to estimate divergence times.
We recovered monophyletic Schizomida and Uropygi as each other's sister group, forming the clade Thelyphonida, and terminals from the New World were usually positioned as the earliest diverging lineages. The ancestral area for schizomids reconstructed unambiguously to the region comprised of Mexico, Southern California and Florida (the xeric New World subtropics). Optimal trees suggested a single colonization of the Indo‐Pacific in both orders, although this did not receive bootstrap support. Molecular dating gave an Upper Carboniferous origin for each order, and a mid‐Cretaceous expansion of Schizomida, including the origin and initial diversification of those in the Indo‐Pacific.
Ancestral area reconstructions, molecular dating and fossil evidence all support an Upper Carboniferous, tropical Pangean origin for Thelyphonida, Schizomida and perhaps Uropygi. Much of this region became unsuitable habitat for these arachnids during the breakup of Pangea, but they persisted in the area that is now Meso‐ and South America. From there they then expanded to the Indo‐Pacific, where schizomids today display an idiosyncratic combination of microendemism and long‐range dispersal.