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Geometric morphometric analysis of the pronotum and elytron in stag beetles: insight into its diversity and evolution.

ABSTRACT: Stag beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea, Lucanidae) have received extensive attention from researchers in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. There have been no previous quantitative analyses, particularly using a geometric morphometric approach based on a large sample of data, to shed light on the morphological diversity and evolution of Lucanidae. Thoracic adaptation and ecological differentiation are intimately related, and the pronotum bears important muscles and supports the locomotion of prothoracic legs. The elytron is an autapomorphy of the Coleoptera. To reconstruct and visualize the patterns of evolutionary diversification and phylogenetic history of shape change, an ancestral groundplan can be reconstructed by mapping geometric morphometric data onto a phylogenetic tree. In this study, the morphologies of the pronotum and elytron in 1303 stag beetles (Lucanidae), including approximately 99.2% of all globally described species, were examined, thus revealing several aspects of morphological diversity and evolution. First, on the basis of geometric morphometric analysis, we found significant morphological differences in the pronotum or elytron between any two Lucanidae subfamilies. And we subsequently reconstructed the ancestral groundplans of the two structures in stag beetles and compared them with those of extant species (through cladistic and geometric morphometric methods). The ancestral groundplan of Lucanidae was found to be most similar to extant Nicagini in both the pronotum and elytron, according to Mahalanobis distances. Furthermore, we analyzed species richness and morphological diversity of stag beetles and the relationships between them and found that the two parameters were not always correlated. Aesalinae was found to be the most diverse subfamily in both the pronotum and elytron, despite its poor species richness, and the diversity of the pronotum or elytron was not superior in Lucaninae, despite its high species richness. Our study provides insights into the morphological variations and evolutionary history of the pronotum and elytron in four subfamilies of stag beetles, and it illuminates the relationship between morphological diversity and species richness. Intriguingly, our analysis indicates that morphological diversity and species richness are not always correlated. These findings may stimulate further studies in this field.

SUBMITTER: Zhang M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6443621 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Geometric morphometric analysis of the pronotum and elytron in stag beetles: insight into its diversity and evolution.

Zhang Mengna M Ruan Yongying Y Wan Xia X Tong Yijie Y Yang Xingke X Ming Bai

ZooKeys 20190325

Stag beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea, Lucanidae) have received extensive attention from researchers in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. There have been no previous quantitative analyses, particularly using a geometric morphometric approach based on a large sample of data, to shed light on the morphological diversity and evolution of Lucanidae. Thoracic adaptation and ecological differentiation are intimately related, and the pronotum bears important muscles and supports the locomo ...[more]

PMID: 31015774

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Project description:Adult females of stag beetles (Coleoptera: Lucanidae) possess an ovipositor-associated mycangium for conveying symbiotic microorganisms. In most lucanid species, their mycangium contains yeast symbionts of the genus Scheffersomyces Kurtzman and Suzuki that are known for their xylose-fermenting capability. The lucanid genus Platycerus Geoffroy, 1762 is a group of small blue stag beetles, in which ten Japanese species constitute a monophyletic clade. Here we examined the evolutionary relationships of these Japanese Platycerus species and their yeast symbionts, together with a Korean Platycerus species and other lucanid species as outgroup taxa. Based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and the intergenic spacer (IGS) sequences, the yeast symbionts of all Platycerus species were closely related to each other and formed a monophyletic clade. There is no variation in ITS sequences of the yeast symbionts of the Japanese Platycerus species. Based on IGS sequences, the yeast symbionts formed clusters that largely reflected the geographic distribution of the host insects, being shared by sympatric Platycerus species except for P. delicatulus Lewis, 1883 and P. viridicuprus Kubota & Otobe, The symbiont phylogeny was globally not congruent with the host COI-based phylogeny, although some local congruences were observed. Statistically significant correlations were detected between the genetic distances of COI sequences of the host insects and those of IGS sequences of the yeast symbionts in Japan. These results suggest that, at least to some extent, the host insects and the yeast symbionts may have experienced co-evolutionary associations. While the Japanese Platycerus species formed a monophyletic clade in the COI phylogeny, the yeast symbionts of Japanese P. viridicuprus were very closely related to those of Korean P. hongwonpyoi Imura & Choe, 1989, suggesting the possibility that a recent secondary contact of the two beetle species during a marine withdrawal, e.g., in the last glacial period, might have resulted in an inter-specific horizontal transmission of the yeast symbiont.

Dataset Information

Geometric morphometric analysis of the pronotum and elytron in stag beetles: insight into its diversity and evolution.

Publications

Geometric morphometric analysis of the pronotum and elytron in stag beetles: insight into its diversity and evolution.

Similar Datasets

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