Macroevolution of hyperdiverse flightless beetles reflects the complex geological history of the Sunda Arc

The Sunda Arc forms an almost continuous chain of islands and thus a potential dispersal corridor between mainland Southeast Asia and Melanesia. However, the Sunda Islands have rather different geological histories, which might have had an important impact on actual dispersal routes and community assembly. Here, we reveal the biogeographical history of hyperdiverse and flightless Trigonopterus weevils. Different approaches to ancestral area reconstruction suggest a complex east to west range expansion. Out of New Guinea, Trigonopterus repeatedly reached the Moluccas and Sulawesi transgressing Lydekker′s Line. Sulawesi repeatedly acted as colonization hub for different segments of the Sunda Arc. West Java, East Java and Bali are recognized as distinct biogeographic areas. The timing and diversification of species largely coincides with the geological chronology of island emergence. Colonization was not inhibited by traditional biogeographical boundaries such as Wallace’s Line. Rather, colonization patterns support distance dependent dispersal and island age limiting dispersal

DNA Barcoding for Community Ecology - How to Tackle a Hyperdiverse, Mostly Undescribed Melanesian Fauna

Trigonopterus weevils are widely distributed throughout Melanesia and hyperdiverse in New Guinea. They are a dominant feature in natural forests, with narrow altitudinal zonation. Their use in community ecology has been precluded by the "taxonomic impediment". We sampled >6,500 specimens from seven areas across New Guinea; 1,002 specimens assigned to 270 morphospecies were DNA sequenced. Objective clustering of a refined dataset (excluding nine cryptic species) at 3% threshold revealed 324 genetic clusters (DNA group count relative to number of morphospecies = 20.0% overestimation of species diversity, or 120.0% agreement) and 85.6% taxonomic accuracy (the proportion of DNA groups that "perfectly" agree with morphology-based species hypotheses). Agreement and accuracy were best at an 8% threshold. GMYC analysis revealed 328 entities (21.5% overestimation) with 227 perfect GMYC entities (84.1% taxonomic accuracy). Both methods outperform the parataxonomist (19% underestimation; 31.6% taxonomic accuracy). The number of species found in more than one sampling area was highest in the Eastern Highlands and Huon (Sørensen similarity index 0.07, 4 shared species); ⅓ of all areas had no species overlap. Success rates of DNA barcoding methods were lowest when species showed a pronounced geographical structure. In general, Trigonopterus show high α and β-diversity across New Guinea. DNA barcoding is an excellent tool for biodiversity surveys but success rates might drop when closer localities are included. Hyperdiverse Trigonopterus are a useful taxon for evaluating forest remnants in Melanesia, allowing finer-grained analyses than would be possible with vertebrate taxa commonly used to date. Our protocol should help establish other groups of hyperdiverse fauna as target taxa for community ecology. Sequencing delivers objective data on taxa of incredible diversity but mostly without a solid taxonomic foundation and should help pave the road for the eventual formal naming of new species

Revision of the Australian species of the weevil genus Trigonopterus Fauvel

The Australian species of the genus Trigonopterus Fauvel are revised. Eight previously recognized species are redescribed and 24 additional new species are described: T. allaetus Riedel, sp. n., T. athertonensis Riedel, sp. n., T. australinasutus Riedel, sp. n., T. australis Riedel, sp. n., T. bisignatus Riedel, sp. n., T. bisinuatus Riedel, sp. n., T. boolbunensis Riedel, sp. n., T. cooktownensis Riedel, sp. n., T. daintreensis Riedel, sp. n., T. deplanatus Riedel, sp. n., T. finniganensis Riedel, sp. n., T. fraterculus Riedel, sp. n., T. garradungensis Riedel, sp. n., T. hasenpuschi Riedel, sp. n., T. hartleyensis Riedel, sp. n., T. kurandensis Riedel, sp. n., T. lewisensis Riedel, sp. n., T. montanus Riedel, sp. n., T. monteithi Riedel, sp. n., T. mossmanensis Riedel, sp. n., T. oberprieleri Riedel, sp. n., T. robertsi Riedel, sp. n., T. terraereginae Riedel, sp. n., T. yorkensis Riedel, sp. n.. All new species are authored by the taxonomist-in-charge, Alexander Riedel. Lectotypes are designated for the following names: Idotasia aequalis Pascoe, I. albidosparsa Lea, I. evanida Pascoe, I. laeta Lea, I. rostralis Lea, I. sculptirostris Lea, I. squamosa Lea. A new combination of the name Idotasia striatipennis Lea is proposed: Trigonopterus striatipennis (Lea), comb. n.. A key to the species is provided. Australian Trigonopterus occur in coastal Queensland, narrowly crossing into New South Wales. The southern parts of the range are inhabited by species found on foliage. A rich fauna of 19 edaphic species inhabiting the leaf litter of tropical forests is reported for the first time from the Australian Wet Tropics

High mitochondrial DNA sequence divergence in New Guinea Carabdytes stream beetles and the taxonomist’s dilemma when other evidence is kind of subtle… (and collecting localities are far far away)

Carabdytes upin tindige ssp. n. is described from the Arfak Mountains, Bird’s Head, Indonesian Papua. It is morphologically very similar to Carabdytes upin upin Balke et al., 1992, known from eastern Indonesian Papua eastward to the western limits of the Papuan Peninsula of Papua New Guinea. For 726 bp at the 3’ end of the mitochondrial cox1 gene, the subspecies differ by 8.1–9.2% uncorrected p-distance. However, we also document considerable cox1 divergence within Carabdytes upin upin. We find few diagnostic positions in the nuclear genes argenine kinase as well as elongation factor 1 alpha that suggest there are indeed two isolated groups of Carabdytes, but evidence in elongation factor 1 alpha is not unambiguous. We decided to highlight this phenomenon of ambiguous evidence for ongoing/just attained speciation by describing a subspecies. We argue that such cases are actually common once mitochondrial sequence data are routinely added to the taxonomist’s toolkit, and sometimes simply adding data from few nuclear genes will not suffice the solve taxonomic riddles. Here, detailed population genetic investigations would be required – for which sufficient numbers of specimens from a sufficiently wide geographical sampling might be nearly impossible to acquire

Trigonopterus with focus on New Caledonia

Nexus file of aligned DNA sequence data

Figure 54 from: Riedel A, Sagata K, Surbakti S, Tänzler R, Balke M (2013) One hundred and one new species of Trigonopterus weevils from New Guinea. ZooKeys 280: 1-150. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.280.3906

Figure 54 - Trigonopterus myops Riedel, sp. n., holotype; (a) Habitus (b) Aedeagus

Large-scale molecular phylogeny of Cryptorhynchinae (Coleoptera, Curculionidae) from multiple genes suggests American origin and later Australian radiation

The monophyly of the highly diverse weevil subfamily Cryptorhynchinae is tested with a dataset of 203 taxa representing 159 genera of Curculionoidea, 105 of them Cryptorhynchinae s.l. We construct a phylogeny based on an alignment of 5523 bp, consisting of fragments from two mitochondrial genes (two fragments of COI, 16S) and seven nuclear genes (ArgK, CAD, EF1α, enolase, H4, 18S, 28S). Analyses of maximum likelihood and Bayes inference recovered largely congruent results. Groups with different morphology of the rostral furrow (e.g. Aedemonini, Camptorhinini, Cryptorhynchini, Ithyporini) are not closely related to each other. However, most taxa with a mesosternal receptacle are monophyletic and here defined as Cryptorhynchinae s.s., comprising Cryptorhynchini, Gasterocercini, Torneumatini and Psepholacini, but also Arachnopodini and Idopelma Faust. The genus Phyrdenus LeConte is excluded from Cryptorhynchinae and transferred to Conotrachelini of Molytinae. Thus defined, the group still comprises several thousand species with centres of its diversity in South America and Australia. The early lineages we find in America and the Palearctic, while the extremely diverse faunas of Australia and neighbouring islands mainly belong to a more recent, species-rich radiation. This also includes a clade comprising the majority of litter-inhabiting species of New Zealand and the genus Miocalles Pascoe. Flightlessness was attained repeatedly and resulted in convergent evolution of a similar habitus in different zoogeographic regions, mainly exhibited by the polyphyletic genus Acalles Schoenherr.This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemenisnchaft, DFG (RI 1817/1-1, 3-1, 3-3)Peer Reviewe

Data from: Transoceanic origin of microendemic and flightless New Caledonian weevils

The origin of the astonishing New Caledonian biota continues to fuel a heated debate among advocates of a Gondwanan relict scenario and defenders of late oceanic dispersal. Here, we study the origin of New Caledonian Trigonopterus flightless weevils using a multimarker molecular phylogeny. We infer two independent clades of species found in the archipelago. Our dating estimates suggest a Late Miocene origin of both clades long after the re-emergence of New Caledonia about 37 Ma. The estimation of ancestral ranges supports an ancestral origin of the genus in a combined region encompassing Australia and New Guinea with subsequent colonizations of New Caledonia out of New Guinea in the mid-Miocene. The two New Caledonian lineages have had very different evolutionary trajectories. Colonizers belonging to a clade of foliage dwellers greatly diversified, whereas species inhabiting leaf-litter have been less successful

Supplementary Information from Transoceanic origin of microendemic and flightless New Caledonian weevils

see page 1 for caption of appendices 1-