Person: McKenna, Duane
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McKenna
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Duane
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McKenna, Duane
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Publication Temporal lags and overlap in the diversification of weevils and flowering plants(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009) McKenna, Duane; Sequeira, Andrea; Marvaldi, A. E.; Farrell, BrianThe 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 ≈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 ≈166 Ma. Subsequent colonization of early crown-group angiosperms occurred during the Early Cretaceous, but this alone evidently did not lead to an immediate and major diversification event in weevils. Comparative trends in weevil diversification and angiosperm dominance reveal that massive diversification began in the mid-Cretaceous (ca. 112.0 to 93.5 Ma), when angiosperms first rose to widespread floristic dominance. These and other evidence suggest a deep and complex history of coevolution between weevils and angiosperms, including codiversification, resource tracking, and sequential evolution.Publication 9-Genes Reinforce the Phylogeny of Holometabola and Yield Alternate Views on the Phylogenetic Placement of Strepsiptera(Public Library of Science, 2010) McKenna, Duane; Farrell, BrianBackground: The extraordinary morphology, reproductive and developmental biology, and behavioral ecology of twisted wing parasites (order Strepsiptera) have puzzled biologists for centuries. Even today, the phylogenetic position of these enigmatic “insects from outer space” [1] remains uncertain and contentious. Recent authors have argued for the placement of Strepsiptera within or as a close relative of beetles (order Coleoptera), as sister group of flies (order Diptera), or even outside of Holometabola.Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we combine data from several recent studies with new data (for a total of 9 nuclear genes and ∼13 kb of aligned data for 34 taxa), to help clarify the phylogenetic placement of Strepsiptera. Our results unequivocally support the monophyly of Neuropteroidea ( = Neuropterida + Coleoptera) + Strepsiptera, but recover Strepsiptera either derived from within polyphagan beetles (order Coleoptera), or in a position sister to Neuropterida. All other supra-ordinal- and ordinal-level relationships recovered with strong nodal support were consistent with most other recent studies. Conclusions/Significance: These results, coupled with the recent proposed placement of Strepsiptera sister to Coleoptera, suggest that while the phylogenetic neighborhood of Strepsiptera has been identified, unequivocal placement to a specific branch within Neuropteroidea will require additional study.Publication Tropical forests are both evolutionary cradles and museums of leaf beetle diversity(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2006-07-03) McKenna, Duane; Farrell, BrianThe high extant species diversity of tropical lineages of organisms is usually portrayed as a relatively recent and rapid development or as a consequence of the gradual accumulation or preservation of species over time. These explanations have led to alternative views of tropical forests as evolutionary “cradles” or “museums” of diversity, depending on the organisms under study. However, biogeographic and fossil evidence implies that the evolutionary histories of diversification among tropical organisms may be expected to exhibit characteristics of both cradle and museum models. This possibility has not been explored in detail for any group of terrestrial tropical organisms. From an extensively sampled molecular phylogeny of herbivorous Neotropical leaf beetles in the genus Cephaloleia, we present evidence for (i) comparatively ancient Paleocene–Eocene adaptive radiation associated with global warming and Cenozoic maximum global temperatures, (ii) moderately ancient lineage-specific diversification coincident with the Oligocene adaptive radiation of Cephaloleia host plants in the genus Heliconia, and (iii) relatively recent Miocene–Pliocene diversification coincident with the collision of the Panama arc with South America and subsequent bridging of the Isthmus of Panama. These results demonstrate that, for Cephaloleia and perhaps other lineages of organisms, tropical forests are at the same time both evolutionary cradles and museums of diversity.