Harald Letsch

University of Vienna | UniWien · Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research

Dragonflies and damselflies are among the earliest flying insects with extant representatives. However, unravelling details of their long evolutionary history, such as egg laying (oviposition) strategies, is impeded by unresolved phylogenetic relationships particularly in damselflies. Here we present a transcriptome-based phylogenetic reconstructio...

Extant members of the ancient insect order of stoneflies exhibit a disjunct, antitropical distribution, with one major lineage exclusively occurring in the Southern Hemisphere and the other, with few exceptions, on the Northern continents. Here, we address the biogeographic distribution and phylogenetic relationships of stoneflies using a phylogene...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Acoustic communication is enabled by the evolution of specialised hearing and sound producing organs. In this study, we performed a large-scale macroevolutionary study to understand how both hearing and sound production evolved and affected diversification in the insect order Orthoptera, which includes many familiar singing insects, such as cricket...

Dragonflies and damselflies, representing the insect order Odonata, are among the earliest flying insects with living (extant) representatives. However, unravelling details of their long evolutionary history, such as egg laying (oviposition) strategies, is impeded by unresolved phylogenetic relationships, an issue particularly prevalent in damselfl...

Wallace's Line, located in the heart of the Indo‐Australian archipelago, has historically been hypothesized to strongly inhibit dispersal. Taxa crossing this barrier are confronted with different biota of Asian or Australian origin, respectively, but the extent to which these conditions have affected the evolution of the colonizing lineages remains...

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Appendix: Supplementary Information

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The order Coleoptera (beetles) is arguably the most speciose group of animals, but the evolutionary history of beetles, including the impacts of plant feeding (herbivory) on beetle diversification, remain poorly understood. We inferred the phylogeny of beetles using 4,818 genes for 146 species, estimated timing and rates of beetle diversification u...

Phasmatodea comprises over 3,000 extant species and stands out as one of the last remaining insect orders for which a robust, higher-level phylogenetic hypothesis is lacking. New research suggests that the extant diversity is the result of a surprisingly recent and rapid radiation that has been difficult to resolve with standard Sanger sequence dat...

The first dated phylogeny of the weevil subfamily Cryptorhynchinae is presented within a framework of Curculionoidea. The inferred pattern and timing of weevil family relationships are generally congruent with previous studies, but our data are the first to suggest a highly supported sister‐group relationship between Attelabidae and Belidae. Our bi...

Polyneoptera represents one of the major lineages of winged insects, comprising around 40,000 extant species in 10 traditional orders, including grasshoppers, roaches, and stoneflies. Many important aspects of polyneopteran evolution, such as their phylo-genetic relationships, changes in their external appearance, their habitat preferences, and soc...

Table S1: Sampling ratio of all included genera of Ceutorhynchinae. Table S2: Taxon sampling including NCBI genbank accession numbers. Table S2.1: Voucher IDs of all specimens provided by the Molecular Weevil Identification project. Table S3: Host plant associations of all included ceutorhynchine weevils. Table S4A: Results of the character‐dep...

Using molecular phylogenetic data and methods we infer divergence times and diversification patterns for the weevil subfamily Ceutorhynchinae in the context of host-plant associations and global climate over evolutionary time. We detected four major diversification shifts that correlate with both host shifts and major climate events. Ceutorhynchina...

The 2016 International Weevil Meeting was held immediately after the International Congress of Entomology (ICE). It built on the topics and content of the 2016 ICE weevil symposium Phylogeny and Evolution of Weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea): A Symposium in Honor of Dr. Guillermo "Willy" Kuschel. Beyond catalyzing research and collaboration, the...

Background The Palaearctic butterfly genus Pseudophilotes Beuret, 1958 (Lycaenidae: Polyommatinae), that today occurs in North Africa and in Eurasia, includes ten described species with various distribution ranges, including endemics such as the Sardinian P. barbagiae. Phylogenetic relationships among these species are largely unresolved. In the pr...

Host plant shifts of insects can lead to a burst of diversification driven by their arrival in a new adaptive zone. In this context, our study aims to explore timing and patterns in the evolution of the weevil tribe Apionini (Brentidae, Curculionoidea, Coleoptera), particularly in relation to affiliations with their host plants. The classification...

Ecological diversification of aquatic insects has long been suspected to have been driven by differences in freshwater habitats, which can be classified into flowing (lotic) waters, and standing (lentic) waters. The contrasting characteristics of lotic and lentic freshwater systems imply different ecological constraints on their inhabitants. The ep...

The systematic position, at family level, of the enigmatic Pseudobiston pinratanai Inoue, 1994 (originally described in Geometridae), has been questioned by several entomologists. A complete lack of abdominal tympanal organs was seemingly incompatible with a position among the Geometridae, while the other morphological characters of P. pinratanai w...

Ecological diversification of aquatic insects has long been suspected as a result of differences in the occupied freshwater habitat systems. These be classified into two different groups: 1) flowing (lotic) waters, like springs, small streams and rivers, and 2) standing (lentic) water bodies, like swamps, pools or lakes. The contrasting spatial and...

Tong et al. comment on the accuracy of the dating analysis presented in our work on the phylogeny of insects and provide a reanalysis of our data. They replace log-normal priors with uniform priors and add a "roachoid" fossil as a calibration point. Although the reanalysis provides an interesting alternative viewpoint, we maintain that our choices...

A common pattern frequently occurring in phylogenetic trees is unbalanced clade size, i.e. the extent to which clades in a tree tend to differ in their diversity. While this can partially be expected simply by chance, several studies in the past have shown that imbalanced phylogenies are significantly more frequent than expected by models of divers...

Since its discovery and description, the oriental moth Pseudobiston pinratanai Inoue, 1994, could not be placed in any of the recognized families of Macroheterocera (Lepidoptera). Here, we used molecular and morphological data to infer the phylogenetic position of the species. These analyses indicate that Pseudobiston pinratanai is closely related...

Table S1.Sequences from GenBank with accession numbers used in this study. All sequences from Peña et al. (2006), except CytB sequences. Table S2. List of specimens used in this study and their collection localities and dates, when available.

The use of DNA sequence data often leads to the recognition of cryptic species within putatively well-known taxa. The opposite case, detecting less diversity than originally described, has, however, far more rarely been documented. Maniola jurtina, the Meadow Brown butterfly, occurs all over Europe, whereas all other six species in the genus Maniol...

Insects are the most speciose group of animals, but the phylogenetic relationships of many major lineages remain unresolved. We inferred the phylogeny of insects from 1478 protein-coding genes. Phylogenomic analyses of nucleotide and amino acid sequences, with site-specific nucleotide or domain-specific amino acid substitution models, produced stat...

After the description of Pseudobiston pinratanai Inoue, 1994 within the Geometridae, the family placement of this enigmatic, oriental species has been questioned by different authors. Although a complete lack of abdominal tympanal organs strongly suggested a non-geometrid taxon, the other morphological characters of P. pinratanai were initially con...

The branching pattern of the diverse lower neopteran insect lineages (Polyneoptera: cockroaches, mantids, earwigs, grasshoppers, phasmids etc.) is the least resolved problem in insect systematics. Despite the accumulation of various morphological and molecular datasets, the proposed phylogenetic relationships within Polyneoptera remain unstable. In...

The earliest branching event in winged insects, one of the core problems regarding early insect evolution, was addressed using characters of the head. The head is arguably one of the most complex body regions in insects and the phylogenetic information content of its features has been demonstrated. In contrast, the wings and other body parts relate...

In this study, we investigated the relationships among insect orders with a main focus on Polyneoptera (lower Neoptera: roaches, mantids, earwigs, grasshoppers, etc.), and Paraneoptera (thrips, lice, bugs in the wide sense). The relationships between and within these groups of insects are difficult to resolve because only few informative molecular...

Failure to account for covariation patterns in helical regions of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes has the potential to misdirect the estimation of the phylogenetic signal of the data. Furthermore, the extremes of length variation among taxa, combined with regional substitution rate variation can mislead the alignment of rRNA sequences and thus distort s...

Taxa list. A list of all applied sequence data with according Genbank accession numbers.

Tree reconstruction results. All trees (Newick le format) provided by the DNA model setups the and mixed RNA/DNA model setups of all applied data sets.

Tables. Tables providing the Genbank accession numbers of constraint sequences used for the RNASALSA alignment, the detailed results of the AICc test and the detailed results of the Robinson-Foulds distance measurements.

Additional tree reconstruction results. Detailed discussion on the results of tree reconstruction of Chilopoda, Hexapoda, Anisoptera, Primates and Heterobranchia.

The use of secondary structures has been advocated to improve both the alignment and the tree reconstruction processes of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) data sets. We used simulated and empirical rRNA data to test the impact of secondary structure consideration in both steps of molecular phylogenetic analyses. A simulation approach was used to generate reali...

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes are probably the most frequently used data source in phylogenetic reconstruction. Individual columns of rRNA alignments are not independent as a consequence of their highly conserved secondary structures. Unless explicitly taken into account, these correlation can distort the phylogenetic signal and/or lead to gross overe...

Secondary structure models of mitochondrial and nuclear (r)RNA sequences are frequently applied to aid the alignment of these molecules in phylogenetic analyses. Additionally, it is often speculated that structure variation of (r)RNA sequences might profitably be used as phylogenetic markers. The benefit of these approaches depends on the reliabili...

Molecular phylogenies are being published increasingly and many biologists rely on the most recent topologies. However, different phylogenetic trees often contain conflicting results and contradict significant background data. Not knowing how reliable traditional knowledge is, a crucial question concerns the quality of newly produced molecular data...

Taxa list. Taxa list of sampled sequences. * indicates concatenated 18S and 28S rRNA sequences from different species. For combinations of genes to construct concatenated sequences of chimeran taxa, see Table S1. ** contributed sequences in the present study (author of sequences).

Bayesian support values for selected clades. List of Baysian support values (posterior probability, pP) for selected clades of the time-heterogeneous and time-homogeneous tree.

Detailed flow of the analysis procedure in the software package PHASE-2.0. Options used in PHASE-2.0 are italicized above the arrows and are followed by input files. Black arrows represent general flows of the analysis procedure, green arrows show that results or parameter values after single steps were inserted or accessed in a further process. Re...

Primer list 18S rRNA

Primer list 28S rRNA

Primercard of the 28S rRNA gene for pterygots. Positions of forward primers are assigned by green arrows, those of reverse primers with red arrows. When different primers with identical position were used, all primer labels are given at the single arrow for the specific position. Primers and their combinations are given in Additional file 7 and 11.

PCR temperature-profiles

Included chains to infer the time-homogeneous consensus tree. Number of chains, generations per chain, harmonic means (lnL) and 2lnB10-values included to infer the time-homogeneous consensus tree.

Localities of sampled taxa

Primercard of the 18S rRNA gene for hexapods, myriapods and crustaceans. Primers used for hexapods or myriapods are shown in the upper part, primers for crustaceans in the lower part. Positions of forward primers are marked with green arrows, those of reverse primers with red arrows. When different primers with identical position were used, all pri...

PCR chemicals

LogDet corrected network of concatenated 18S and 28S rRNA alignment. LogDet corrected network plus invariant site models (30.79% invariant sites) using SplitsTree4 based on the concatenated 18S and 28S rRNA alignment after exclusion of randomly similar sections evaluated with ALISCORE.

List of chimeran species for concatenated 18S and 28S rRNA sequences

Primercard of the 28S rRNA gene for crustaceans, hexapods and myriapods. Positions of forward primers are tagged with green arrows, those of reverse primers with red arrows. When different primers with identical position were used, all primer labels are given at the single arrow for the specific position. Primers and their combinations are given in...

Supplementary Information. Supplementary information for lab work (amplificaion, purification and sequencing of PCR products).

Setting of exchangeability parameters used in pre-runs. Listed settings of exchangeability parameters used in pre-runs in PHASE-2.0.

Included chains to infer the time-heterogeneous consensus tree. Number of chains, generations per chain, harmonic means (lnL) and 2lnB10-values included to infer the time-heterogeneous consensus tree.

Whenever different data sets arrive at conflicting phylogenetic hypotheses, only testable causal explanations of sources of errors in at least one of the data sets allow us to critically choose among the conflicting hypotheses of relationships. The large (28S) and small (18S) subunit rRNAs are among the most popular markers for studies of deep phyl...

Abstract Background Whenever different data sets arrive at conflicting phylogenetic hypotheses, only testable causal explanations of sources of errors in at least one of the data sets allow us to critically choose among the conflicting hypotheses of relationships. The large (28S) and small (18S) subunit rRNAs are among the most popular markers fo...