Life-history specialization was not an evolutionary dead-end in Pyrenean cave beetles.

ABSTRACT: Research on subterranean organisms has focused on the colonization process and some of the associated phenotypic changes, but little is known on the long-term evolutionary dynamics of subterranean lineages and the origin of some highly specialized complex characters. One of the most extreme modifications is the reduction of the number of larval instars in some Leptodirini beetles from the ancestral 3 to 2 and ultimately a single instar. This reduction is usually assumed to have occurred independently multiple times within the same lineage and geographical area, but its evolution has never been studied in a phylogenetic framework. Using a comprehensive molecular phylogeny, we found a low number of independent origins of the reduction in the number of instars, with a single transition, dated

SUBMITTER: Cieslak A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3953839 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature