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The Opiliones tree of life: shedding light on harvestmen relationships through transcriptomics.

ABSTRACT: Opiliones are iconic arachnids with a Palaeozoic origin and a diversity that reflects ancient biogeographic patterns dating back at least to the times of Pangea. Owing to interest in harvestman diversity, evolution and biogeography, their relationships have been thoroughly studied using morphology and PCR-based Sanger approaches to infer their systematic relationships. More recently, two studies utilized transcriptomics-based phylogenomics to explore their basal relationships and diversification, but sampling was limiting for understanding deep evolutionary patterns, as they lacked good taxon representation at the family level. Here, we analysed a set of the 14 existing transcriptomes with 40 additional ones generated for this study, representing approximately 80% of the extant familial diversity in Opiliones. Our phylogenetic analyses, including a set of data matrices with different gene occupancy and evolutionary rates, and using a multitude of methods correcting for a diversity of factors affecting phylogenomic data matrices, provide a robust and stable Opiliones tree of life, where most families and higher taxa are precisely placed. Our dating analyses using alternative calibration points, methods and analytical parameters provide well-resolved old divergences, consistent with ancient regionalization in Pangea in some groups, and Pangean vicariance in others. The integration of state-of-the-art molecular techniques and analyses, together with the broadest taxonomic sampling to date presented in a phylogenomic study of harvestmen, provide new insights into harvestmen interrelationships, as well as an overview of the general biogeographic patterns of this ancient arthropod group.

SUBMITTER: Fernandez R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5326524 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Opiliones tree of life: shedding light on harvestmen relationships through transcriptomics.

Fernández Rosa R Sharma Prashant P PP Tourinho Ana Lúcia AL Giribet Gonzalo G

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20170201 1849

Opiliones are iconic arachnids with a Palaeozoic origin and a diversity that reflects ancient biogeographic patterns dating back at least to the times of Pangea. Owing to interest in harvestman diversity, evolution and biogeography, their relationships have been thoroughly studied using morphology and PCR-based Sanger approaches to infer their systematic relationships. More recently, two studies utilized transcriptomics-based phylogenomics to explore their basal relationships and diversification ...[more]

PMID: 28228511

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Project description:A new troglobitic harvestman, Relictopiolus galadriel gen. nov et sp. nov., is described from Olhos d'Água cave, Itacarambi, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Morphological characters, including male genitalia and exomorphology, suggest that this species belongs to the family Kimulidae, and it appears to share the greatest similarities with Tegipiolus pachypus. Bayesian inference analyses of a molecular dataset strongly support the inclusion of this species in Kimulidae and confirm the hypothesized sister-group relationship between R. galadriel and T. pachypus. A time calibrated phylogeny indicates that these sister-taxa diverged from a common ancestor approximately 40 Mya, during the Paleogene. The current range of Kimulidae illustrates a remarkable disjunct distribution, and leads us to hypothesize that the ancestral distribution of Kimulidae was once much more widespread across eastern Brazil. This may be attributed to the Eocene radiation associated with the warming (and humidifying) events in the Cenozoic when the best conditions for evergreen tropical vegetation in South America were established and followed by the extinction of kimulid epigean populations together with the retraction of rain forests during the Oligocene to Miocene cooling. The discovery of this relictual troglobite indicates that the Olhos d'Água cave was a stable refugium for this ancient lineage of kimulids and acted as a "museum" of biodiversity. Our findings, considered collectively with the diverse troglofauna of the Olhos d'Água cave, highlight it as one of the most important hotspots of troglobite diversity and endemism in the Neotropics. Given the ecological stresses on this habitat, the cavernicolous fauna are at risk of extinction and we emphasize the urgent need for appropriate conservation actions. Finally, we propose the transfer of Acanthominua, Euminua, Euminuoides and Pseudominua from Kimulidae to Zalmoxidae, resulting in two new synonymies and 13 new combinations.

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The Opiliones tree of life: shedding light on harvestmen relationships through transcriptomics.

Publications

The Opiliones tree of life: shedding light on harvestmen relationships through transcriptomics.

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