Reanalyzing the Palaeoptera problem - The origin of insect flight remains obscure

Arthropod Structure & Development
Sabrina SimonKaren Meusemann

Abstract

The phylogenetic relationships of the winged insect lineages - mayflies (Ephemeroptera), damselflies and dragonflies (Odonata), and all other winged insects (Neoptera) - are still controversial with three hypotheses supported by different datasets: Palaeoptera, Metapterygota and Chiastomyaria. Here, we reanalyze available phylogenomic data with a focus on detecting confounding and alternative signal. In this context, we provide a framework to quantitatively evaluate and assess incongruent molecular phylogenetic signal inherent in phylogenomic datasets. Despite overall support for the Palaeoptera hypothesis, we also found considerable signal for Chiastomyaria, which is not easily detectable by standardized tree inference approaches. Analyses of the accumulation of signal across gene partitions showed that signal accumulates gradually. However, even in case signal only slightly supported one over the other hypothesis, topologies inferred from large datasets switch from statistically strongly supported Palaeoptera to strongly supported Chiastomyaria. From a morphological point of view, Palaeoptera currently appears to be the best-supported hypothesis; however, recent analyses were restricted to head characters. Phylogenetic approa...Continue Reading

Associated Datasets

Citations

Jun 19, 2019·Insects·Luke M JacobusMichel Sartori
Mar 10, 2021·Die Naturwissenschaften·Vinícius Albano AraújoJosé Eduardo Serrão
Sep 24, 2019·Current Opinion in Insect Science·Kevin P Johnson
Jun 8, 2021·Arthropod Structure & Development·Kathleen Dittrich, Benjamin Wipfler
May 14, 2021·Molecular Biology and Evolution·Nicolás Mongiardino Koch
Oct 13, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Erik TihelkaDavide Pisani

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