Phylogenetic resolution of the fly superfamily Ephydroidea-Molecular systematics of the enigmatic and diverse relatives of Drosophilidae.
Isaac S Winkler, Ashley H Kirk-Spriggs, Keith M Bayless, John Soghigian, Rudolf Meier, Thomas Pape, David K Yeates, A Bernardo Carvalho, Robert S Copeland, Brian M Wiegmann
Author Information
Isaac S Winkler: Department of Biology, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, United States of America.
Ashley H Kirk-Spriggs: African Natural History Research Trust, Leominster, Herefordshire, United Kingdom.
Keith M Bayless: Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO National Research Collection, Australia (NRCA), Acton, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
John Soghigian: Department of Comparative Biology and Experimental Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Rudolf Meier: Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Thomas Pape: Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.
David K Yeates: Australian National Insect Collection, CSIRO National Research Collection, Australia (NRCA), Acton, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
A Bernardo Carvalho: Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ORCID
Robert S Copeland: International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Nairobi, Kenya.
Brian M Wiegmann: Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America.
The schizophoran superfamily Ephydroidea (Diptera: Cyclorrhapha) includes eight families, ranging from the well-known vinegar flies (Drosophilidae) and shore flies (Ephydridae), to several small, relatively unusual groups, the phylogenetic placement of which has been particularly challenging for systematists. An extraordinary diversity in life histories, feeding habits and morphology are a hallmark of fly biology, and the Ephydroidea are no exception. Extreme specialization can lead to "orphaned" taxa with no clear evidence for their phylogenetic position. To resolve relationships among a diverse sample of Ephydroidea, including the highly modified flies in the families Braulidae and Mormotomyiidae, we conducted phylogenomic sampling. Using exon capture from Anchored Hybrid Enrichment and transcriptomics to obtain 320 orthologous nuclear genes sampled for 32 species of Ephydroidea and 11 outgroups, we evaluate a new phylogenetic hypothesis for representatives of the superfamily. These data strongly support monophyly of Ephydroidea with Ephydridae as an early branching radiation and the placement of Mormotomyiidae as a family-level lineage sister to all remaining families. We confirm placement of Cryptochetidae as sister taxon to a large clade containing both Drosophilidae and Braulidae-the latter a family of honeybee ectoparasites. Our results reaffirm that sampling of both taxa and characters is critical in hyperdiverse clades and that these factors have a major influence on phylogenomic reconstruction of the history of the schizophoran fly radiation.
