Loss of flight promotes beetle diversification

Hiroshi Ikeda (), Masaaki Nishikawa and Teiji Sota
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Hiroshi Ikeda: Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305–8687, Japan.
Masaaki Nishikawa: Kashiwagaya 1112–16
Teiji Sota: Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University

Nature Communications, 2012, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The evolution of flight is a key innovation that may enable the extreme diversification of insects. Nonetheless, many species-rich, winged insect groups contain flightless lineages. The loss of flight may promote allopatric differentiation due to limited dispersal power and may result in a high speciation rate in the flightless lineage. Here we show that loss of flight accelerates allopatric speciation using carrion beetles (Coleoptera: Silphidae). We demonstrate that flightless species retain higher genetic differentiation among populations and comprise a higher number of genetically distinct lineages than flight-capable species, and that the speciation rate with the flightless state is twice that with the flight-capable state. Moreover, a meta-analysis of 51 beetle species from 15 families reveals higher genetic differentiation among populations in flightless compared with flight-capable species. In beetles, which represent almost one-fourth of all described species, repeated evolution of flightlessness may have contributed to their steady diversification since the Mesozoic era.

Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1659

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