The Experts below are selected from a list of 360 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Ulrike Aspöck - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly insecta neuropterida a singular phenomenon or a model case in Raphidioptera
Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 2017Co-Authors: Horst Aspöck, Ulrike Aspöck, Axel Gruppe, Marcia Sittenthaler, Elisabeth HaringAbstract:The Mediterranean snakefly Raphidiamediterranea H. Aspock, U. Aspock & Rausch, 1977 – known from many parts of the Balkan Peninsula, several Aegean islands, southern parts of Italy, northwest of Anatolia and a few localities in Eastern Europe, yet not recorded in Central Europe – was surprisingly found with an astoundingly high population density on bushes in the yard of an old farmhouse at a comparatively high altitude (800 m) in Upper Austria, north of the Danube River, in 2013. This spectacular phenomenon was again observed in the following years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), and in 2016 the suspicion that the larvae develop in the straw of the thatched roof of the farmhouse could be confirmed by findings of larvae, pupae, and exuviae.It is most likely, that the occurrence of this Raphidia species in Austria is to be traced back to a human-caused introduction at some point in time. It remains, however, unknown when and specifically how this event might have occurred. Morphologically no substantial differences were found between specimens from Greece, Italy and Upper Austria. In addition, the genetic uniformity (using 3 genes: cox1, cox3, and 28S) of the populations was verified. This supports an earlier hypothesis that the occurrence of the species, as well as that of R.mediterranea in Italy, Anatolia and perhaps elsewhere, may be related to importation of goods involving wood or soil. A molecular genetic analysis of several Raphidia species confirmed the present morphology-based concept of their systematic position. The means of dispersal of Raphidioptera are largely unknown. We do not know of any other similar cases of anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly, but it cannot be excluded that human activities may have played a greater role in the dispersal of Raphidioptera than previously assumed. Phylogenomic studies would therefore be promising to solve some of these questions.
-
Anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly (Insecta, Neuropterida) – a singular phenomenon or a model case in Raphidioptera?
Pensoft Publishers, 2017Co-Authors: Horst Aspöck, Ulrike Aspöck, Axel Gruppe, Marcia Sittenthaler, Elisabeth HaringAbstract:The Mediterranean snakefly Raphidia mediterranea H. Aspöck, U. Aspöck & Rausch, 1977 – known from many parts of the Balkan Peninsula, several Aegean islands, southern parts of Italy, northwest of Anatolia and a few localities in Eastern Europe, yet not recorded in Central Europe – was surprisingly found with an astoundingly high population density on bushes in the yard of an old farmhouse at a comparatively high altitude (800 m) in Upper Austria, north of the Danube River, in 2013. This spectacular phenomenon was again observed in the following years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), and in 2016 the suspicion that the larvae develop in the straw of the thatched roof of the farmhouse could be confirmed by findings of larvae, pupae, and exuviae.It is most likely, that the occurrence of this Raphidia species in Austria is to be traced back to a human-caused introduction at some point in time. It remains, however, unknown when and specifically how this event might have occurred. Morphologically no substantial differences were found between specimens from Greece, Italy and Upper Austria. In addition, the genetic uniformity (using 3 genes: cox1, cox3, and 28S) of the populations was verified. This supports an earlier hypothesis that the occurrence of the species, as well as that of R. mediterranea in Italy, Anatolia and perhaps elsewhere, may be related to importation of goods involving wood or soil. A molecular genetic analysis of several Raphidia species confirmed the present morphology-based concept of their systematic position. The means of dispersal of Raphidioptera are largely unknown. We do not know of any other similar cases of anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly, but it cannot be excluded that human activities may have played a greater role in the dispersal of Raphidioptera than previously assumed. Phylogenomic studies would therefore be promising to solve some of these questions
-
Mitochondrial phylogenomics illuminates the evolutionary history of Neuropterida
Cladistics, 2016Co-Authors: Yuyu Wang, Ulrike Aspöck, Horst Aspöck, Xingyue Liu, Shaun L. Winterton, Yan Yan, Ivonne J. Garzón-orduña, Ding YangAbstract:Neuroptera (lacewings) and allied orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, alderflies) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) are predatory insects and together make up the clade Neuropterida. The higher-level relationships within Neuropterida have historically been widely disputed with multiple competing hypotheses. Moreover, the evolution of important biological innovations among various Neuropterida families, such as the origin, timing and direction of transitions between aquatic and terrestrial habitats of larvae, remains poorly understood. To investigate the origin and diversification of lacewings and their allies, we undertook phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial genomes of all families of Neuropterida using Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony methods. We present a robust, fully resolved phylogeny and divergence time estimation for Neuropterida with strong statistical support for almost all nodes. Mitochondrial sequence data are typified by significant compositional heterogeneity across lineages, and parsimony and models assuming homogeneous rates did not recover Neuroptera as monophyletic. Only a model accounting for compositional heterogeneity (i.e. CAT-GTR) recovered all orders of Neuropterida as monophyletic. Significant findings of the mitogenomic phylogeny include recovering Raphidioptera as sister to Megaloptera plus Neuroptera. The sister family of all other lacewings are the dusty-wings (Coniopterygidae), rather than Nevrorthidae. Nevrorthidae are instead returned to their traditional position as the sister group of the spongilla-flies (Sisyridae) and closely related to Osmylidae. Our divergence time analysis indicates that the Mesozoic was indeed a ‘golden age’ for lacewings, with most families of Neuropterida diverging during the Triassic and Jurassic and all extant families present by the Early Cretaceous. Based on ancestral character state reconstructions of larval habitat we evaluate competing hypotheses regarding the life style of early neuropteridan larvae as either aquatic or terrestrial.
-
Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e4830 doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e4830 Data Paper Fauna Europaea: Neuropterida (Raphidioptera,
2016Co-Authors: Megaloptera Neuroptera, Ulrike Aspöck, Horst Aspöck, Agostino Letardi, Yde De JongAbstract:Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level (up to the Urals, excluding the Caucasus region), and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. For Neuropterida, data from three Insect orders (Raphidioptera, Megaloptera, Neuroptera), comprising 15 families and 397 species, are included. © Aspöck U et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC B
-
The phylogeny of the Neuropterida: long lasting and current controversies and challenges (Insecta: Endopterygota)
2015Co-Authors: Arthropod Systematics, Ulrike Aspöck, Elisabeth Haring, Horst AspöckAbstract:Despite numerous efforts to establish a sound phylogeny of Neuropterida and to trace their position within the tree of En dopterygota these questions up to now still appear far from being solved. The evidence for the sister group relationships among the three orders of Neuropterida is contradictory (i.e., Raphidioptera as sister group of Megaloptera + Neuroptera versus Neuroptera as sister group of Megaloptera + Raphidioptera) and recently even the monophyly of Megaloptera was challenged. Also the phylogenetic relationships among neuropteran families deduced from various studies differ basically in all aspects concerning the number and composition of suborders as well as the basal dichotomies. The morphology based division of Neuroptera into the three suborders Nevrorthiformia, Myrmeleontiformia and Hemerobiiformia with the latter two being sister groups is not recovered by molecular but also some morphology based analyses – as all of them lack mono phyletic Hemerobiiformia. Possible methodological problems contributing to this lack of unambiguous resolution of the phylogeny of Neuropterida are sequence saturation, lack of information in DNA marker sequences, incomplete taxon sam pling and data matrices, as well as – concerning morphological characters – convergence and interpretation of ambiguous character polarity. The phylogenetic relationships of Neuropterida and their position within Endopterygota are of interes
Ding Yang - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Gene Selection and Evolutionary Modeling Affect Phylogenomic Inference of Neuropterida Based on Transcriptome Data
International journal of molecular sciences, 2019Co-Authors: Yuyu Wang, Ding Yang, Xingyue Liu, Xiaofan Zhou, Liming Wang, Antonis RokasAbstract:Neuropterida is a super order of Holometabola that consists of the orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, fishflies, and alderflies), Neuroptera (lacewings) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies). Several proposed higher-level relationships within Neuropterida, such as the relationships between the orders or between the families, have been extensively debated. To further understand the evolutionary history of Neuropterida, we conducted phylogenomic analyses of all 13 published transcriptomes of the neuropterid species, as well as of a new transcriptome of the fishfly species Ctenochauliodes similis of Liu and Yang, 2006 (Megaloptera: Corydalidae: Chauliodinae) that we sequenced. Our phylogenomic data matrix contained 1392 ortholog genes from 22 holometabolan species representing six families from Neuroptera, two families from Raphidioptera, and two families from Megaloptera as the ingroup taxa, and nine orders of Holometabola as outgroups. Phylogenetic reconstruction was performed using both concatenation and coalescent-based approaches under a site-homogeneous model as well as under a site-heterogeneous model. Surprisingly, analyses using the site-homogeneous model strongly supported a paraphyletic Neuroptera, with Coniopterygidae assigned as the sister group of all other Neuropterida. In contrast, analyses using the site-heterogeneous model recovered Neuroptera as monophyletic. The monophyly of Neuroptera was also recovered in concatenation and coalescent-based analyses using genes with stronger phylogenetic signals [i.e., higher average bootstrap support (ABS) values and higher relative tree certainty including all conflicting bipartitions (RTCA) values] under the site-homogeneous model. The present study illustrated how both data selection and model selection influence phylogenomic analyses of large-scale data matrices comprehensively.
-
Mitochondrial phylogenomics illuminates the evolutionary history of Neuropterida
Cladistics, 2016Co-Authors: Yuyu Wang, Ulrike Aspöck, Horst Aspöck, Xingyue Liu, Shaun L. Winterton, Yan Yan, Ivonne J. Garzón-orduña, Ding YangAbstract:Neuroptera (lacewings) and allied orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, alderflies) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) are predatory insects and together make up the clade Neuropterida. The higher-level relationships within Neuropterida have historically been widely disputed with multiple competing hypotheses. Moreover, the evolution of important biological innovations among various Neuropterida families, such as the origin, timing and direction of transitions between aquatic and terrestrial habitats of larvae, remains poorly understood. To investigate the origin and diversification of lacewings and their allies, we undertook phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial genomes of all families of Neuropterida using Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony methods. We present a robust, fully resolved phylogeny and divergence time estimation for Neuropterida with strong statistical support for almost all nodes. Mitochondrial sequence data are typified by significant compositional heterogeneity across lineages, and parsimony and models assuming homogeneous rates did not recover Neuroptera as monophyletic. Only a model accounting for compositional heterogeneity (i.e. CAT-GTR) recovered all orders of Neuropterida as monophyletic. Significant findings of the mitogenomic phylogeny include recovering Raphidioptera as sister to Megaloptera plus Neuroptera. The sister family of all other lacewings are the dusty-wings (Coniopterygidae), rather than Nevrorthidae. Nevrorthidae are instead returned to their traditional position as the sister group of the spongilla-flies (Sisyridae) and closely related to Osmylidae. Our divergence time analysis indicates that the Mesozoic was indeed a ‘golden age’ for lacewings, with most families of Neuropterida diverging during the Triassic and Jurassic and all extant families present by the Early Cretaceous. Based on ancestral character state reconstructions of larval habitat we evaluate competing hypotheses regarding the life style of early neuropteridan larvae as either aquatic or terrestrial.
-
RESEARCH ARTICLE Wing Base Structural Data Support the Sister Relationship of Megaloptera and
2016Co-Authors: Neuroptera Neuropterida, Chenjing Zhao, Xingyue Liu, Ding YangAbstract:The phylogenetic status and the monophyly of the holometabolous insect order Megaloptera has been an often disputed and long unresolved problem. The present study attempts to infer phylogenetic relationships among three orders, Megaloptera, Neuroptera, and Raphidioptera, within the superorder Neuropterida, based on wing base structure. Cladistic analyses were carried out based on morphological data from both the fore- and hindwing base. A sister relationship between Megaloptera and Neuroptera was recovered, and the monophyly of Megaloptera was corroborated. The division of the order Megaloptera, the traditional higher classification, into Corydalidae (Corydalinae + Chauliodinae) and Sialidae, was also supported by our wing base data analyses
-
wing base structural data support the sister relationship of megaloptera and neuroptera insecta neuropterida
PLOS ONE, 2014Co-Authors: Chenjing Zhao, Ding YangAbstract:The phylogenetic status and the monophyly of the holometabolous insect order Megaloptera has been an often disputed and long unresolved problem. The present study attempts to infer phylogenetic relationships among three orders, Megaloptera, Neuroptera, and Raphidioptera, within the superorder Neuropterida, based on wing base structure. Cladistic analyses were carried out based on morphological data from both the fore- and hindwing base. A sister relationship between Megaloptera and Neuroptera was recovered, and the monophyly of Megaloptera was corroborated. The division of the order Megaloptera, the traditional higher classification, into Corydalidae (Corydalinae + Chauliodinae) and Sialidae, was also supported by our wing base data analyses.
-
new transitional fossil snakeflies from china illuminate the early evolution of Raphidioptera
BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2014Co-Authors: Xingyue Liu, Dong Ren, Ding YangAbstract:Raphidioptera (snakeflies) is a holometabolous order of the superorder Neuropterida characterized by the narrowly elongate adult prothorax and the long female ovipositor. Mesozoic snakeflies were markedly more diverse than the modern ones are. However, the evolutionary history of Raphidioptera is largely unexplored, as a result of the poorly studied phylogeny among fossil and extant lineages within the order. In this paper, we report a new snakefly family, Juroraphidiidae fam. nov., based on exquisitely preserved fossils, attributed to a new species Juroraphidia longicollum gen. et sp. nov., from the Jiulongshan Formation (Middle Jurassic) in Inner Mongolia, China. The new family is characterized by an unexpected combination of plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters of Raphidioptera. Based on our phylogenetic analysis, Juroraphidiidae fam. nov. together with Raphidiomorpha form a monophyletic clade, which is the sister to Priscaenigmatomorpha. The snakefly affinity of Priscaenigmatomorpha is confirmed and another new family, Chrysoraphidiidae fam. nov., is erected in this suborder. Juroraphidiidae fam. nov. is determined to be a transitional lineage between Priscaenigmatomorpha and Raphidiomorpha. Diversification of higher snakefly taxa had occurred by the Early Jurassic, suggesting that these insects had already had a long but undocumented history by this time.
Xingyue Liu - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
the snakefly family mesoraphidiidae insecta Raphidioptera from the lower cretaceous yixian formation china systematic revision and phylogenetic implications
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 2020Co-Authors: Yanan Lyu, Dong Ren, Rongrong Shen, Yongjie Wang, Xingyue LiuAbstract:Mesoraphidiidae is one of the major groups among the Mesozoic Raphidioptera, with 70 described species in 30 genera. However, many mesoraphidiid taxa need to be revised and the monophyly of this fa...
-
discovery of Raphidioptera insecta neuropterida in xizang china with description of a new species of inocellia schneider
Zootaxa, 2019Co-Authors: Rongrong Shen, Zhaohui Pan, Xingyue LiuAbstract:The holometabolous order Raphidioptera is recorded from Xizang Autonomous Region for the first time. A new species of the family Inocelliidae, Inocellia tibetana sp. nov., from southeastern Xizang is described and its two sexes illustrated. Based on the male gonocoxite 9 that is longer than width of its base, the new species belongs to the I. fulvostigmata species-group, and it appears to be closely related to I. fulvostigmata U. Aspock, Rausch H. Aspock, 1968. Both species are distributed near the southern edge of the Himalayas. The male of the new species is characterized in the genitalia by the presence of a membranous, short and digitiform gonostylus 9, the gonarcus (fused gonocoxites 11) subtriangular in caudal view dorsally with a pair of short tubercular processes, and the reduction of bristle tuft on the endophallus.
-
Gene Selection and Evolutionary Modeling Affect Phylogenomic Inference of Neuropterida Based on Transcriptome Data
International journal of molecular sciences, 2019Co-Authors: Yuyu Wang, Ding Yang, Xingyue Liu, Xiaofan Zhou, Liming Wang, Antonis RokasAbstract:Neuropterida is a super order of Holometabola that consists of the orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, fishflies, and alderflies), Neuroptera (lacewings) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies). Several proposed higher-level relationships within Neuropterida, such as the relationships between the orders or between the families, have been extensively debated. To further understand the evolutionary history of Neuropterida, we conducted phylogenomic analyses of all 13 published transcriptomes of the neuropterid species, as well as of a new transcriptome of the fishfly species Ctenochauliodes similis of Liu and Yang, 2006 (Megaloptera: Corydalidae: Chauliodinae) that we sequenced. Our phylogenomic data matrix contained 1392 ortholog genes from 22 holometabolan species representing six families from Neuroptera, two families from Raphidioptera, and two families from Megaloptera as the ingroup taxa, and nine orders of Holometabola as outgroups. Phylogenetic reconstruction was performed using both concatenation and coalescent-based approaches under a site-homogeneous model as well as under a site-heterogeneous model. Surprisingly, analyses using the site-homogeneous model strongly supported a paraphyletic Neuroptera, with Coniopterygidae assigned as the sister group of all other Neuropterida. In contrast, analyses using the site-heterogeneous model recovered Neuroptera as monophyletic. The monophyly of Neuroptera was also recovered in concatenation and coalescent-based analyses using genes with stronger phylogenetic signals [i.e., higher average bootstrap support (ABS) values and higher relative tree certainty including all conflicting bipartitions (RTCA) values] under the site-homogeneous model. The present study illustrated how both data selection and model selection influence phylogenomic analyses of large-scale data matrices comprehensively.
-
Mitochondrial phylogenomics illuminates the evolutionary history of Neuropterida
Cladistics, 2016Co-Authors: Yuyu Wang, Ulrike Aspöck, Horst Aspöck, Xingyue Liu, Shaun L. Winterton, Yan Yan, Ivonne J. Garzón-orduña, Ding YangAbstract:Neuroptera (lacewings) and allied orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, alderflies) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) are predatory insects and together make up the clade Neuropterida. The higher-level relationships within Neuropterida have historically been widely disputed with multiple competing hypotheses. Moreover, the evolution of important biological innovations among various Neuropterida families, such as the origin, timing and direction of transitions between aquatic and terrestrial habitats of larvae, remains poorly understood. To investigate the origin and diversification of lacewings and their allies, we undertook phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial genomes of all families of Neuropterida using Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony methods. We present a robust, fully resolved phylogeny and divergence time estimation for Neuropterida with strong statistical support for almost all nodes. Mitochondrial sequence data are typified by significant compositional heterogeneity across lineages, and parsimony and models assuming homogeneous rates did not recover Neuroptera as monophyletic. Only a model accounting for compositional heterogeneity (i.e. CAT-GTR) recovered all orders of Neuropterida as monophyletic. Significant findings of the mitogenomic phylogeny include recovering Raphidioptera as sister to Megaloptera plus Neuroptera. The sister family of all other lacewings are the dusty-wings (Coniopterygidae), rather than Nevrorthidae. Nevrorthidae are instead returned to their traditional position as the sister group of the spongilla-flies (Sisyridae) and closely related to Osmylidae. Our divergence time analysis indicates that the Mesozoic was indeed a ‘golden age’ for lacewings, with most families of Neuropterida diverging during the Triassic and Jurassic and all extant families present by the Early Cretaceous. Based on ancestral character state reconstructions of larval habitat we evaluate competing hypotheses regarding the life style of early neuropteridan larvae as either aquatic or terrestrial.
-
RESEARCH ARTICLE Wing Base Structural Data Support the Sister Relationship of Megaloptera and
2016Co-Authors: Neuroptera Neuropterida, Chenjing Zhao, Xingyue Liu, Ding YangAbstract:The phylogenetic status and the monophyly of the holometabolous insect order Megaloptera has been an often disputed and long unresolved problem. The present study attempts to infer phylogenetic relationships among three orders, Megaloptera, Neuroptera, and Raphidioptera, within the superorder Neuropterida, based on wing base structure. Cladistic analyses were carried out based on morphological data from both the fore- and hindwing base. A sister relationship between Megaloptera and Neuroptera was recovered, and the monophyly of Megaloptera was corroborated. The division of the order Megaloptera, the traditional higher classification, into Corydalidae (Corydalinae + Chauliodinae) and Sialidae, was also supported by our wing base data analyses
Horst Aspöck - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly insecta neuropterida a singular phenomenon or a model case in Raphidioptera
Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 2017Co-Authors: Horst Aspöck, Ulrike Aspöck, Axel Gruppe, Marcia Sittenthaler, Elisabeth HaringAbstract:The Mediterranean snakefly Raphidiamediterranea H. Aspock, U. Aspock & Rausch, 1977 – known from many parts of the Balkan Peninsula, several Aegean islands, southern parts of Italy, northwest of Anatolia and a few localities in Eastern Europe, yet not recorded in Central Europe – was surprisingly found with an astoundingly high population density on bushes in the yard of an old farmhouse at a comparatively high altitude (800 m) in Upper Austria, north of the Danube River, in 2013. This spectacular phenomenon was again observed in the following years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), and in 2016 the suspicion that the larvae develop in the straw of the thatched roof of the farmhouse could be confirmed by findings of larvae, pupae, and exuviae.It is most likely, that the occurrence of this Raphidia species in Austria is to be traced back to a human-caused introduction at some point in time. It remains, however, unknown when and specifically how this event might have occurred. Morphologically no substantial differences were found between specimens from Greece, Italy and Upper Austria. In addition, the genetic uniformity (using 3 genes: cox1, cox3, and 28S) of the populations was verified. This supports an earlier hypothesis that the occurrence of the species, as well as that of R.mediterranea in Italy, Anatolia and perhaps elsewhere, may be related to importation of goods involving wood or soil. A molecular genetic analysis of several Raphidia species confirmed the present morphology-based concept of their systematic position. The means of dispersal of Raphidioptera are largely unknown. We do not know of any other similar cases of anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly, but it cannot be excluded that human activities may have played a greater role in the dispersal of Raphidioptera than previously assumed. Phylogenomic studies would therefore be promising to solve some of these questions.
-
Anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly (Insecta, Neuropterida) – a singular phenomenon or a model case in Raphidioptera?
Pensoft Publishers, 2017Co-Authors: Horst Aspöck, Ulrike Aspöck, Axel Gruppe, Marcia Sittenthaler, Elisabeth HaringAbstract:The Mediterranean snakefly Raphidia mediterranea H. Aspöck, U. Aspöck & Rausch, 1977 – known from many parts of the Balkan Peninsula, several Aegean islands, southern parts of Italy, northwest of Anatolia and a few localities in Eastern Europe, yet not recorded in Central Europe – was surprisingly found with an astoundingly high population density on bushes in the yard of an old farmhouse at a comparatively high altitude (800 m) in Upper Austria, north of the Danube River, in 2013. This spectacular phenomenon was again observed in the following years (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), and in 2016 the suspicion that the larvae develop in the straw of the thatched roof of the farmhouse could be confirmed by findings of larvae, pupae, and exuviae.It is most likely, that the occurrence of this Raphidia species in Austria is to be traced back to a human-caused introduction at some point in time. It remains, however, unknown when and specifically how this event might have occurred. Morphologically no substantial differences were found between specimens from Greece, Italy and Upper Austria. In addition, the genetic uniformity (using 3 genes: cox1, cox3, and 28S) of the populations was verified. This supports an earlier hypothesis that the occurrence of the species, as well as that of R. mediterranea in Italy, Anatolia and perhaps elsewhere, may be related to importation of goods involving wood or soil. A molecular genetic analysis of several Raphidia species confirmed the present morphology-based concept of their systematic position. The means of dispersal of Raphidioptera are largely unknown. We do not know of any other similar cases of anthropogenic dispersal of a snakefly, but it cannot be excluded that human activities may have played a greater role in the dispersal of Raphidioptera than previously assumed. Phylogenomic studies would therefore be promising to solve some of these questions
-
Mitochondrial phylogenomics illuminates the evolutionary history of Neuropterida
Cladistics, 2016Co-Authors: Yuyu Wang, Ulrike Aspöck, Horst Aspöck, Xingyue Liu, Shaun L. Winterton, Yan Yan, Ivonne J. Garzón-orduña, Ding YangAbstract:Neuroptera (lacewings) and allied orders Megaloptera (dobsonflies, alderflies) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies) are predatory insects and together make up the clade Neuropterida. The higher-level relationships within Neuropterida have historically been widely disputed with multiple competing hypotheses. Moreover, the evolution of important biological innovations among various Neuropterida families, such as the origin, timing and direction of transitions between aquatic and terrestrial habitats of larvae, remains poorly understood. To investigate the origin and diversification of lacewings and their allies, we undertook phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial genomes of all families of Neuropterida using Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony methods. We present a robust, fully resolved phylogeny and divergence time estimation for Neuropterida with strong statistical support for almost all nodes. Mitochondrial sequence data are typified by significant compositional heterogeneity across lineages, and parsimony and models assuming homogeneous rates did not recover Neuroptera as monophyletic. Only a model accounting for compositional heterogeneity (i.e. CAT-GTR) recovered all orders of Neuropterida as monophyletic. Significant findings of the mitogenomic phylogeny include recovering Raphidioptera as sister to Megaloptera plus Neuroptera. The sister family of all other lacewings are the dusty-wings (Coniopterygidae), rather than Nevrorthidae. Nevrorthidae are instead returned to their traditional position as the sister group of the spongilla-flies (Sisyridae) and closely related to Osmylidae. Our divergence time analysis indicates that the Mesozoic was indeed a ‘golden age’ for lacewings, with most families of Neuropterida diverging during the Triassic and Jurassic and all extant families present by the Early Cretaceous. Based on ancestral character state reconstructions of larval habitat we evaluate competing hypotheses regarding the life style of early neuropteridan larvae as either aquatic or terrestrial.
-
Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e4830 doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e4830 Data Paper Fauna Europaea: Neuropterida (Raphidioptera,
2016Co-Authors: Megaloptera Neuroptera, Ulrike Aspöck, Horst Aspöck, Agostino Letardi, Yde De JongAbstract:Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level (up to the Urals, excluding the Caucasus region), and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. For Neuropterida, data from three Insect orders (Raphidioptera, Megaloptera, Neuroptera), comprising 15 families and 397 species, are included. © Aspöck U et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC B
-
The phylogeny of the Neuropterida: long lasting and current controversies and challenges (Insecta: Endopterygota)
2015Co-Authors: Arthropod Systematics, Ulrike Aspöck, Elisabeth Haring, Horst AspöckAbstract:Despite numerous efforts to establish a sound phylogeny of Neuropterida and to trace their position within the tree of En dopterygota these questions up to now still appear far from being solved. The evidence for the sister group relationships among the three orders of Neuropterida is contradictory (i.e., Raphidioptera as sister group of Megaloptera + Neuroptera versus Neuroptera as sister group of Megaloptera + Raphidioptera) and recently even the monophyly of Megaloptera was challenged. Also the phylogenetic relationships among neuropteran families deduced from various studies differ basically in all aspects concerning the number and composition of suborders as well as the basal dichotomies. The morphology based division of Neuroptera into the three suborders Nevrorthiformia, Myrmeleontiformia and Hemerobiiformia with the latter two being sister groups is not recovered by molecular but also some morphology based analyses – as all of them lack mono phyletic Hemerobiiformia. Possible methodological problems contributing to this lack of unambiguous resolution of the phylogeny of Neuropterida are sequence saturation, lack of information in DNA marker sequences, incomplete taxon sam pling and data matrices, as well as – concerning morphological characters – convergence and interpretation of ambiguous character polarity. The phylogenetic relationships of Neuropterida and their position within Endopterygota are of interes
Michael S. Engel - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Ricardo Pérez-de la Fuente1,†, Enrique Peñalver2,‡,
2016Co-Authors: Xavier Delclos, Michael S. EngelAbstract:The Albian amber from Spain presently harbors the greatest number and diversity of amber adult fossil snakeflies (Raphidioptera). Within Baissopteridae, Baissoptera? cretaceoelectra sp. n., from the Peñacer-rada I outcrop (Moraza, Burgos), is the first amber inclusion belonging to the family and described from western Eurasia, thus substantially expanding the paleogeographical range of the family formerly known from the Cretaceous of Brazil and eastern Asia. Within the family Mesoraphidiidae, Necroraphidia arcuata gen. et sp. n. and Amarantoraphidia ventolina gen. et sp. n. are described from the El Soplao outcro
-
family group names for snakeflies Raphidioptera
Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 2012Co-Authors: Michael S. EngelAbstract:Abstract Those family-group names for snakeflies (Neuropterida: Raphidioptera) are catalogued. The type genus and combining stem are identified for 22 family-group names, including the new subtribes Mongoloraphidiina and Ohmellina. The higher classification of the order is briefly summarized.
-
snakefly diversity in early cretaceous amber from spain neuropterida Raphidioptera
ZooKeys, 2012Co-Authors: Ricardo Perezde La Fuente, Enrique Penalver, Xavier Delclos, Michael S. EngelAbstract:The Albian amber from Spain presently harbors the greatest number and diversity of amber adult fossil snakeflies (Raphidioptera). Within Baissopteridae, Baissoptera? cretaceoelectra sp. n., from the Penacerrada I outcrop (Moraza, Burgos), is the first amber inclusion belonging to the family and described from western Eurasia, thus substantially expanding the paleogeographical range of the family formerly known from the Cretaceous of Brazil and eastern Asia. Within the family Mesoraphidiidae, Necroraphidia arcuata gen. et sp. n. and Amarantoraphidia ventolina gen. et sp. n. are described from the El Soplao outcrop (Rabago, Cantabria), whereas Styporaphidia? hispanica sp. n. and Alavaraphidia imperterrita gen. et sp. n. are describedfrom Penacerrada I. In addition, three morphospecies are recognized from fragmentary remains. The following combinations are restored: Yanoraphidia gaoi Ren, 1995, stat. rest., Mesoraphidia durlstonensis Jepson, Coram and Jarzembowski, 2009, stat. rest., and Mesoraphidia heteroneura Ren, 1997, stat. rest. The singularity of this rich paleodiversity could be due to the paleogeographic isolation of the Iberian territory and also the prevalence of wildfires during the Cretaceous.
-
a miocene snakefly from stewart valley nevada Raphidioptera raphidiidae
Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, 2009Co-Authors: Michael S. EngelAbstract:The first fossil snakefly from the Neogene of North America (mid-Miocene of Nevada) is described and figured. Agulla mineralensis Engel, new species, is represented by an isolated hind wing and is more similar to modern Nearctic snakeflies in venation than to most Old World species in contrast to some of the Paleogene species which seem to represent a different faunal composition.
-
new snakeflies from the jiulongshan formation of inner mongolia china Raphidioptera
Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 2008Co-Authors: Michael S. Engel, Dong RenAbstract:Abstract Two new genera and species of snakeflies (Raphidioptera) are described and figured from the Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of eastern Inner Mongolia, China. Ororaphidia megalocephala, new genus and species, and Styporaphidia magia, new genus and species, are both differentiated from other Mesozoic snakefly lineages. These constitute the oldest records of snakeflies from China.
