An official website of the United States government
Abstract Recently discovered amber-preserved fossil Cicadellidae exhibit combinations of morphological traits not observed in the modern fauna and have the potential to shed new light on the evolution of this highly diverse family. To place the fossils explicitly within a phylogenetic context, representatives of five extinct genera from Cretaceous Myanmar amber, and one from Eocene Baltic amber were incorporated into a matrix comprising 229 discrete morphological characters and representatives of all modern subfamilies. Phylogenetic analyses yielded well resolved and largely congruent estimates that support the monophyly of most previously recognized cicadellid subfamilies and indicate that the treehoppers are derived from a lineage of Cicadellidae. Instability in the morphology-based phylogenies is mainly confined to deep internal splits that received low branch support in one or more analyses and also were not consistently resolved by recent phylogenomic analyses. Placement of fossil taxa is mostly stable across analyses. Three new Cretaceous leafhopper genera, Burmotettix gen. nov., Kachinella gen nov., and Viraktamathus gen. nov., consistently form a monophyletic group distinct from extant leafhopper subfamilies and are placed in Burmotettiginae subfam. nov. Extinct Cretaceous fossils previously placed in Ledrinae and Signoretiinae are recovered as sister to modern representatives of these groups. Eomegophthalmus Dietrich and Gonçalves from Baltic amber consistently groups with a lineage comprising treehoppers, Megophthalminae, Ulopinae, and Eurymelinae but its position is unstable. Overall, the morphology-based phylogenetic estimates agree with recent phylogenies based on molecular data alone suggesting that morphological traits recently used to diagnose subfamilies are generally informative of phylogenetic relationships within this group.
more »
« less
Phylogeny of Membracoidea (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha) based on transcriptome data
Abstract The suborder Auchenorrhyncha (“true hoppers”) comprises nearly half of known Hemiptera, with >43,000 known species of sap‐sucking herbivores distributed worldwide, including many important agricultural pests and vectors of plant disease. More than half of the known Auchenorrhyncha belong to superfamily Membracoidea (leaf‐ and treehoppers), which has been a source of phylogenetic contention for many years. To construct an improved backbone phylogeny of this superfamily, we obtained transcriptome data for multiple representatives of all 5 previously established extant families and nearly all subfamilies to test their monophyly and relationships. 138 taxa (132 Membracoidea and 6 outgroups) were sampled with an emphasis on families Cicadellidae and Membracidae, which were paraphyletic as previously defined by most authors, several problematic subfamilies (Aphrodinae, Eurymelinae, Ledrinae, Nicomiinae, Stegaspidinae and Tartessinae). We analysed different combinations of data sets (amino acid, complete nucleotide and degeneracy‐coded nucleotide) using different modelling schemes. The resultant trees based on different analyses are congruent in most nodes. Discordant nodes mainly pertain to relationships among cicadellid subfamilies and tribal relationships within Aphrodinae and Eurymelinae. Analyses of gene‐ and site concordance factors and quartet scores indicate that this instability is largely attributable to an overall lack of informative characters across genes and sites rather than strongly supported conflict among genes. According to the congruent nodes, we make the following revisions: combine Stegaspidinae and Centrotinae into a single subfamily, Centrotinae sensu lato; restore Stenocotini from Tartessinae to its original position in the Ledrinae; and transformHoldgatiellaEvans from Nicomiinae to Melizoderinae. In addition, to solve the paraphyly of both Cicadellidae and Membracidae, a preferred option would be to combine all five previously recognized families into a single family, Membracidae sensu lato; the other option could be to render Cicadellidae monophyletic by excluding Megophthalminae and Ulopinae from Cicadellidae and elevating them to status as separate families.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1639601
- PAR ID:
- 10442989
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Systematic Entomology
- Volume:
- 48
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0307-6970
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 97-110
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract The hemipteran suborder Auchenorrhyncha is a highly diverse, ecologically and agriculturally important group of primarily phytophagous insects which has been a source of phylogenetic contention for many years. Here, we have used transcriptome sequencing to assemble 2139 orthologues from 84 auchenorrhynchan species representing 27 families; this is the largest and most taxonomically comprehensive phylogenetic dataset for this group to date. We used both maximum likelihood and multispecies coalescent analyses to reconstruct the evolutionary history in this group using amino acid, nucleotide, and degeneracy‐coded nucleotide orthologue data. Although many relationships at the superfamily level were consistent between analyses, several differing, highly supported topologies were recovered using different datasets and reconstruction methods, most notably the differential placement of Cercopoidea as sister to either Cicadoidea or Membracoidea. To further interrogate the recovered topologies, we explored the contribution of genes as partitioned by third‐codon‐position guanine‐cytosine (GC) content and heterogeneity. We found consistent support for several relationships, including Cercopoidea + Cicadoidea, most often in genes that would be expected to be enriched for the true species tree if recombination‐based dynamics in GC content have contributed to the observed GC heterogeneity. Our results provide a generally well‐supported framework for future studies of auchenorrhynchan phylogeny and suggest that transcriptome sequencing is likely to be a fruitful source of phylogenetic data for resolving its clades. However, we caution that future work should account for the potential effects of GC content heterogeneity on relationships recovered in this group.more » « less
-
Herbert, De’Broski R. (Ed.)ABSTRACT Transmitted by ticks, the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato is the causative agent of Lyme disease (LD), the most common vector-borne disease in the Northern hemisphere. No effective vaccines are currently available. B. burgdorferi sensu lato produces the CspZ protein that binds to the complement inhibitor, factor H (FH), promoting evasion of the host complement system. We previously showed that while vaccination with CspZ did not protect mice from B. burgdorferi infection, mice can be protected after immunization with CspZ-Y207A/Y211A (CspZ-YA), a CspZ mutant protein without FH-binding activity. To further study the mechanism of this protection, herein we evaluated both poly- and monoclonal antibodies recognizing CspZ FH-binding or non-FH-binding sites. We found that the anti-CspZ antibodies that recognize the FH-binding sites (i.e., block FH-binding activity) eliminate B. burgdorferi sensu lato in vitro more efficiently than those that bind to the non-FH-binding sites, and passive inoculation with anti-FH-binding site antibodies eradicated B. burgdorferi sensu lato in vivo . Antibodies against non-FH-binding sites did not have the same effect. These results emphasize the importance of CspZ FH-binding sites in triggering a protective antibody response against B. burgdorferi sensu lato in future LD vaccines.more » « less
-
PremiseComprising five families that vastly differ in species richness—ranging from Gelsemiaceae with 13 species to the Rubiaceae with 13,775 species—members of the Gentianales are often among the most species‐rich and abundant plants in tropical forests. Despite considerable phylogenetic work within particular families and genera, several alternative topologies for family‐level relationships within Gentianales have been presented in previous studies. MethodsHere we present a phylogenomic analysis based on nuclear genes targeted by the Angiosperms353 probe set for approximately 150 species, representing all families and approximately 85% of the formally recognized tribes. We were able to retrieve partial plastomes from off‐target reads for most taxa and infer phylogenetic trees for comparison with the nuclear‐derived trees. ResultsWe recovered high support for over 80% of all nodes. The plastid and nuclear data are largely in agreement, except for some weakly to moderately supported relationships. We discuss the implications of our results for the order’s classification, highlighting points of increased support for previously uncertain relationships. Rubiaceae is sister to a clade comprising (Gentianaceae + Gelsemiaceae) + (Apocynaceae + Loganiaceae). ConclusionsThe higher‐level phylogenetic relationships within Gentianales are confidently resolved. In contrast to recent studies, our results support the division of Rubiaceae into two subfamilies: Cinchonoideae and Rubioideae. We do not formally recognize Coptosapelteae and Luculieae within any particular subfamily but treat them as incertae sedis. Our framework paves the way for further work on the phylogenetics, biogeography, morphological evolution, and macroecology of this important group of flowering plants.more » « less
-
Large systematic revisionary projects incorporating data for hundreds or thousands of taxa require an integrative approach, with a strong biodiversity-informatics core for efficient data management to facilitate research on the group. Our original biodiversity informatics platform, 3i (Internet-accessible Interactive Identification) combined a customized MS Access database backend with ASP-based web interfaces to support revisionary syntheses of several large genera of leafhopers (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae). More recently, for our National Science Foundation sponsored project, “GoLife: Collaborative Research: Integrative genealogy, ecology and phenomics of deltocephaline leafhoppers (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), and their microbial associates”, we selected the new open-source platform TaxonWorks as the cyberinfrastructure. In the scope of the project, the original “3i World Auchenorrhyncha Database” was imported into TaxonWorks. At the present time, TaxonWorks has many tools to automatically import nomenclature, citations, and specimen based collection data. At the time of the initial migration of the 3i database, many of those tools were still under development, and complexity of the data in the database required a custom migration script, which is still probably the most efficient solution for importing datasets with long development history. At the moment, the World Auchenorrhyncha Database comprehensively covers nomenclature of the group and includes data on 70 valid families, 6,816 valid genera, 47,064 valid species as well as synonymy and subsequent combinations (Fig. 1). In addition, many taxon records include the original citation, bibliography, type information, etymology, etc. The bibliography of the group includes 37,579 sources, about 1/3 of which are associated with PDF files. Species have distribution records, either derived from individual specimens or as country and state level asserted distribution, as well as biological associations indicating host plants, predators, and parasitoids. Observation matrices in TaxonWorks are designed to handle morphological data associated with taxa or specimens. The matrices may be used to automatically generate interactive identification keys and taxon descriptions. They can also be downloaded to be imported, for example, into Lucid builder, or to perform phylogenetic analysis using an external application. At the moment there are 36 matrices associated with the project. The observation matrix from GoLife project covers 798 taxa by 210 descriptors (most of which are qualitative multi-state morphological descriptors) (Fig. 2). Illustrations are provided for 9,886 taxa and organized in the specialized image matrix and could be used as a pictorial key for determination of species and taxa of a higher rank. For the phylogenetic analysis, a dataset was constructed for 730 terminal taxa and >160,000 nucleotide positions obtained using anchored hybrid enrichment of genomic DNA for a sample of leafhoppers from the subfamily Deltocephalinae and outgroups. The probe kit targets leafhopper genes, as well as some bacterial genes (endosymbionts and plant pathogens transmitted by leafhoppers). The maximum likelihood analyses of concatenated nucleotide and amino acid sequences as well as coalescent gene tree analysis yielded well-resolved phylogenetic trees (Cao et al. 2022). Raw sequence data have been uploaded to the Sequence Read Archive on GenBank. Occurrence and morphological data, as well as diagnostic images, for voucher specimens have been incorporated into TaxonWorks. Data in TaxonWorks could be exported in raw format, get accessed via Application Programming Interface (API), or be shared with external data aggregators like Catalogue of Life, GBIF, iDigBio.more » « less
