Temporal lags and overlap in the diversification of weevils and flowering plants.

ABSTRACT: The extraordinary diversity of herbivorous beetles is usually attributed to coevolution with angiosperms. However, the degree and nature of contemporaneity in beetle and angiosperm diversification remain unclear. Here we present a large-scale molecular phylogeny for weevils (herbivorous beetles in the superfamily Curculionoidea), one of the most diverse lineages of insects, based on approximately 8 kilobases of DNA sequence data from a worldwide sample including all families and subfamilies. Estimated divergence times derived from the combined molecular and fossil data indicate diversification into most families occurred on gymnosperms in the Jurassic, beginning approximately 166 Ma. Subsequent colonization of early crown-group angiosperms occurred during the Early Cretaceous, but this alo

SUBMITTER: McKenna DD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2678426 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature