Recent projects
Origin, diversification and evolution of the family Fanniidae (Diptera),
(National Science Centre opus 26 grant 2023/51/B/NZ8/01333)
The incredible diversity found in the Tree of Life has long fascinated scientists, prompting investigations into the factors that drive species diversification and the varying richness of species across habitats, regions, and taxonomic groups. One prominent pattern, the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), traditionally shows a decline in species richness from the equator to the poles. Despite being a fascinating pattern that has been studied for decades, a satisfactory explanation for it remains elusive. A challenge to understanding the standard LDG is the discovery of a small but growing number of lineages that deviate from this pattern, lineages exhibiting inverse LDGs with peak species richness in extratropical regions. An important goal is to identify and characterise such contrarian clades and understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that contribute to their differences. By studying these groups, we can improve our understanding of diversity gradients by seeking explanations for these non-standard cases using the same fundamental mechanisms that underlie speciation, extinction, and dispersal—three processes that ultimately impact species richness and diversity gradients.
This project focuses on the dipteran family Fanniidae as a model group to evaluate scenarios that aim to explain the latitudinal diversity gradient. Fanniidae are found in all biogeographic regions of the world, with the highest species diversity observed in temperate areas of both hemispheres, revealing an inverse LDG. However, a crucial first step for exploring evolutionary questions using phylogenies is establishing robustly resolved taxonomic relationships. As the relationships within Fanniidae remain questionable, this project will employ state-of-the-art molecular methods to construct a large-scale phylogeny of Fanniidae. This study will provide new and highly desirable insights into the phylogenetic relationships within the Fanniidae family—an insect group of medical, sanitary, and veterinary importance to humans and animals. Secondly, leveraging the global distribution of Fanniidae, we will infer the centre of origin for the family and examine scenarios that potentially explain its diversity gradient. We will explore whether patterns of Fanniidae species richness can be explained by mechanisms associated with time for species accumulation, species diversification rates, available regional energy, or combination of these three explanations. Finally, through sampling genomes from Fanniidae lineages exhibiting distinct ecological, physiological, or behavioural traits, we will conduct a comparative genomics study. This analysis will uncover potential genetic and genomic mechanisms underlying the biological adaptations of Fanniidae, exploring specific rapidly evolving gene families responsible for their successful adaptation to local habitats.
The outcomes of this study will contribute to a deeper understanding of Fanniidae and hold relevance for specialists, the broader scientific community, and society at large. We will establish a robust phylogenetic framework for Fanniidae, shedding light on the evolutionary relationships within the family. Additionally, by investigating mechanisms underlying the LDG and the genetic adaptability of Fanniidae, we will advance our knowledge of biodiversity patterns and the genetic processes driving species adaptation.
.
This project is caried out in collaboration with Adrian C. Pont, Thomas Pape, Claudio J. B. de Carvalho, Paul Hebert, Dong Zhang, Marta Wolff.
A large-scale phylogeny and evolution of immature stages in megadiverse family Muscidae (Diptera),
(National Science Centre opus 17 grant 2019/33/B/NZ8/02316)
Insects representing more than half of living species reached astonishing evolutionary success and an amazing variety of natural histories. Studying evolutionary histories within certain insect lineages will allow to understand how the majority of organisms diversity on Earth evolved. The evolution of phenotypic traits depends on many factors. In consequence two opposite patterns of rates of morphological diversification may occur, i.e., rapid phenotypic changes or long-term phenotypic stasis in evolutionary lineages. On the other hand, particular habitats may elicit evolution of overall similar morphological traits. To overcome the issue of constraints in trait’s ability to change, organisms may adapt to new local environments by means of introduction of phenotypic innovations.
Diptera represents one, out of four, insects super radiations. Dipteran taxon Cyclorrhapha, which includes almost half of 150 000 named dipteran species, achieved great evolutionary success for example due to modifications in larval morphology. In this project, using megadiverse cyclorrhaphan family Muscidae, app. 5 200 species, as a model group we will investigate whether adaptations to various feeding strategies within certain lineages of living organisms may lead to certain structural changes. However, a vital first step for exploration of evolutionary issues by means of the phylogenies is robustly resolved taxonomic relationships. Since taxonomic relationships within Muscidae remains questionable, in this project we will use various next generation sequencing (NGS) approaches, a way allowing to resolve puzzling phylogenetic relationships, to reconstruct a large-scale phylogeny of Muscidae. We will study and describe details of preimaginal stages morphology of all evolutionary lineages within Muscidae. For the first time we will identify traits of immature stages morphology conserved across Muscidae clades and will use them as a corroboration of certain nodes in phylogenetic tree to build a new robust classification system. This study will provide new, highly desirable, insights into the phylogenetic relationships within a family Muscidae, a group of insects of high agricultural, medical and veterinary importance to humans. Taking the advantage of phylogenetic comparative methods, we will investigate whether certain modifications of immature stages morphology in various Muscidae lineages are correlated with feeding strategies such that feeding strategies in Muscidae reflect certain modifications in larval morphology. Subsequently we will perform a stochastic mapping to infer the ancestral feeding strategy and ancestral traits of larval morphology of Muscidae to explore their evolutionary histories and investigate mechanisms involved in adaptations to local environments. This will allow us to explore evolutionary mechanisms involved in adaptations to local environments.
This project is caried out in collaboration with Marcin Piwczyński, James F. Wallman, Brian Wiegmann, Burgert Muller, and Thomas Pape.
