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Evolution of freshwater insects: using phylogenomics to decode Osmyloidea (Neuroptera) origins
Alice C. Assmar, Renato J. P. Machado, and Jessica P. Gillung
Aquatic life strategies evolved independently multiple times throughout the insects’ evolution. These insects are an essential component of food webs, playing a major role in nutrient cycling, and making up a large proportion of ecosystem biomass. Major life strategy transitions, such as aquatic-terrestrial lifestyles, require a series of adaptations, and by deciphering these transitions we can better understand the macroevolution and diversification of organisms. Lacewings (Neuroptera) are an unexplored model for investigating life strategy transitions. Although they are the sister group to the exclusively aquatic order Megaloptera, the lacewings are predominantly terrestrial, except for the superfamily Osmyloidea, which has freshwater representatives. Osmyloidea comprises three families, two of them are truly aquatic (Sisyridae and Nevrorthidae), whilst one is terrestrial and semi-aquatic (Osmylidae). The goal of our study was to explore life history transitions (i.e., aquatic and terrestrial) and the diversification of Osmyloidea. To achieve this, we conducted a phylogenomic study of Osmyloidea, aiming to elucidate their ancestral life history and species relationships. We combined available sequences for 15 species with newly-generated genomic data for 80 additional species, which together represent nearly 25% of Osmyloidea diversity. We selected Osmyloidea species from different continents and used specimens from museum collections to conduct low-coverage whole genome sequencing using services offered by McGill Genome Centre commercial laboratories. By using bioinformatics, we targeted ultraconserved-elements, which allowed us to investigate deep taxonomic relationships, and estimated a phylogenetic tree using IQTree. Through the integration of these datasets, we developed the first hypothesis regarding the evolutionary history of Osmyloidea.
