Aridification and major geotectonic landscape change shaped an extraordinary species radiation across a world's extreme elevational gradient.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the profound influence of climatic and tectonic histories on adaptation and speciation is a crucial focus in biology research. While voyages like Humboldt's expedition shaped our understanding of adaptation, the origin of current biodiversity remains unclear - whether it arose in situ or through dispersal from analogous habitats. Situated in the geologically complex Australopacific region, our study focuses on Limbodessus diving beetles (Dytiscidae), a diverse genus distributed from underground aquifers in Western Australia to alpine meadows in New Guinea. Using low-coverage whole-genome sequencing, we established a time-calibrated phylogenetic tree, elucidating Limbodessus' origin in the mid-late Miocene, most likely in the Sahul continent (i.e., Australia and New Guinea) an

SUBMITTER: Villastrigo A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11561355 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature