Abstract
Understanding how and why some groups have become more species-rich than others, and how past biogeography may have shaped their current distribution, are questions that evolutionary biologists have long attempted to answer. We investigated diversification patterns and historical biogeography of a hyperdiverse lineage of Lepidoptera, the geometrid moths, by studying its most species-rich tribe Boarmiini, which comprises ca. 200 genera and ca. known 3000 species. We inferred the evolutionary relationships of Boarmiini based on a dataset of 346 taxa, with up to eight genetic markers under a maximum likelihood approach. The monophyly of Boarmiini is strongly supported. However, the phylogenetic position of many taxa does not agree with current taxonomy, although the monophyly of most major genera within the tribe is supported after minor adjustments. Three genera are synonymized, one new combination is proposed, and four species are placed in incertae sedis within Boarmiini. Our results support the idea of a rapid initial diversification of Boarmiini, which also implies that no major taxonomic subdivisions of the group can currently be proposed. A time-calibrated tree and biogeographical analyses suggest that boarmiines appeared in Laurasia ca. 52 Mya, followed by dispersal events throughout the Australasian, African and Neotropical regions. Most of the transcontinental dispersal events occurred in the Eocene, a period of intense geological activity and rapid climate change. Diversification analyses showed a relatively constant diversification rate for all Boarmiini, except in one clade containing the species-rich genus Cleora. The present work represents a substantial contribution towards understanding the evolutionary origin of Boarmiini moths. Our results, inevitably biased by taxon sampling, highlight the difficulties with working on species-rich groups that have not received much attention outside of Europe. Specifically, poor knowledge of the natural history of geometrids (particularly in tropical clades) limits our ability to identify key innovations underlying the diversification of boarmiines.
Highlights
The moth family Geometridae is a hyperdiverse insect group with more than 24,000 described species worldwide (Mitter et al, 2017)
Our study aims to resolve the major evolutionary relationships of Boarmiini with an expanded taxon dataset, combining those analysed by Wahlberg et al (2010), Jiang et al (2017) and the recent phylogenetic study of geometrid moths by Murillo-Ramos et al (2019)
Some species-rich genera like Aphilopota Warren, 1899; Cleora Curtis, 1825; Colocleora Prout, 1938; Ectropis Hübner, 1825; Geolyces Walker, 1860; Hypomecis Hübner, 1821; Melanolophia Hulst, 1897; Ophthalmitis Guenee, 1857 and Physocleora Warren 1897 were recovered as para- and/or polyphyletic
Summary
The moth family Geometridae is a hyperdiverse insect group with more than 24,000 described species worldwide (Mitter et al, 2017). As with other lineages of Lepidoptera, geometrids show a suite of traits, such as host-plant shifts, as well as good camouflage, that could have played an important role in their evolutionary radiation (Ehrlich and Raven, 1964; Fordyce, 2010). Key components leading to their evolutionary success are unclear, and the diversification dynamics of the main lineages within geometrids remain unexplored. Within Geometridae, the tribe Boarmiini, in the subfamily Ennomi nae, is by far the most species-rich tribe, with ca. The actual numbers are certainly higher, with rough estimates suggesting that Boarmiini may comprise 5000 or more species (Jiang et al, 2017; Müller et al, 2019). The evolutionary relationships among boar miines have been difficult to resolve, further complicated by numerous conflicting regional classifications and the paucity of molecular data
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