A presentation on morphological and molecular phylogenetic studies on insects and flies given at the 30th Willi Hennig Society Meeting in July-August 2011.
1. 1
Molecules and morphology: insights from phylogenetic
analyses of insect taxa
Torsten Dikow
Biodiversity Synthesis Center
Field Museum of Natural History
Chicago, IL, USA
4. . Morphological and Molecular Data 4
Morphological and Molecular Data
“It is still common for phylogeneticists to fear that
molecular data will swamp out the signal of phenotypic
characters such as morphology and behavior.”
Pickett & Carpenter 2010: 13
1987
5. . Morphological and Molecular Data 5
Morphological and Molecular Data
◊ Kluge 1989 – Total Evidence
◊ Nixon & Carpenter 1996 – Simultaneous Analysis
◊ Freudenstein et al. 2003
› today: morphological and DNA nucleotide data
› increasingly used: behavioral and ecological data
› future: entire genomes, gene rearrangemant, morphology, behavior,
ecology
◊ greatest explanatory power
6. . Morphological and Molecular Data 6
Simultaneous Analysis
“Although neither of us believes that the evolutionary character content of a single
nucleotide substitution, for example, is comparable to any given morphological character
– most of which are the polygenic result of multiple, interacting genes – philosophical
consistency dictates that we treat all characters as equal contributors to the topology.”
Pickett & Carpenter 2010: 17
“Thus, here we are willingly increasing the relative power of single nucleotides or indel
events to that of complex morphological characters (no doubt the result of many thousands
of nucleotides). So, in effect, we are sharply minimizing the phylogenetic impact of the
morphology relative to the molecular characters. As a result, none can argue that we have
unfairly stacked the deck against the molecules.”
Pickett & Carpenter 2010: 17
7. .. Simultaneous Analyses of Insect Taxa 7
Published Simultaneous Analyses – Cladistics
12
9
Number
6
44 analyses 3
insect taxa = 13
other animal taxa = 22 0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
plant taxa = 9 Year
9. ... Methodology 9
Simultaneous Analysis – traditional approach
◊ Morphological Data
› primary homology statements
already made by investigator
(“prealigned”)
static static analysis
SuperMatrix in TNT
◊ Molecular Data
› unaligned nucleotides
› nucleotides to be aligned using
traditional alignment algorithms
10. ... Methodology 10
Simultaneous Analysis – current approach
◊ Morphological Data
› primary homology statements
already made by investigator
(“prealigned”)
semi-dynamic semi-dynamic
SuperMatrix analysis in POY
◊ Molecular Data
› unaligned nucleotides
› nucleotides to be aligned using
dynamic homology
11. ... Methodology 11
Simultaneous Analysis – future approach?
◊ Morphological Data
› “unaligned” character states
› character states to be “aligned”
using dynamic homology
assignment dynamic dynamic
SuperMatrix analysis in POY
◊ Molecular Data
› unaligned nucleotides
› nucleotides to be aligned using
dynamic homology
29. ..... Summary 29
Summary
◊ Total evidence strongest hypothesis
› largest taxonomic coverage
› largest amount of data
◊ Combined morphological and molecular data not used for phylogeny too often
◊ Several simultaneous analysis methods available
◊ Completeness of matrix might affect results
30. 30
Acknowledgments
◊ Willi Hennig Society
◊ U.S. National Science Foundation (DDIG DEB 0608258, REVSYS DEB 0919333)
◊ Cornell University, AMNH, FMNH