Abstract
Understanding animal terrestrialization, the process through which animals colonized the land, is crucial to clarify extant biodiversity and biological adaptation. Arthropoda (insects, spiders, centipedes and their allies) represent the largestmajority of terrestrial biodiversity.Herewe implemented amolecular palaeobiological approach, merging molecular and fossil evidence, to elucidate the deepest history of the terrestrial arthropods. We focused on the three independent, Palaeozoic arthropod terrestrialization events (those of Myriapoda, Hexapoda and Arachnida) and showed that a marine route to the colonization of land is the most likely scenario.Molecular clock analyses confirmed an origin for the three terrestrial lineages bracketed between the Cambrian and the Silurian. While molecular divergence times for Arachnida are consistent with the fossil record, Myriapoda are inferred to have colonized land earlier, substantially predating trace or body fossil evidence. An estimated origin of myriapods by the Early Cambrian precedes the appearance of embryophytes and perhaps even terrestrial fungi, raising the possibility that terrestrialization had independent origins in crown-group myriapod lineages, consistent with morphological arguments for convergence in tracheal systems. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Dating species divergences using rocks and clocks’.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 20150133 |
Journal | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
Volume | 371 |
Issue number | 1699 |
Early online date | 20 Jun 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 19 Jul 2016 |
Funding
This work was supported by a Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Fellowship to J.L.-F. R.C. was supported by a Science Foundation Ireland grant to D.P. (11/RFP/EOB/3106), A.R.T. was supported by a University of Bristol (STAR) PhD studentship. M.P. was supported by a NERC PhD studentship. Edinburgh Genomics is partially supported by core grants from (NERC R8/H10/56), MRC (MR/ K001744/1) and BBSRC (BB/J004243/1). J.O. was supported by a grant from the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (0601-12345B).
Keywords
- Arthropod evolution
- Molecular clock
- Molecular palaeobiology
- Phylogeny
- Terrestrialization
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
- General Agricultural and Biological Sciences