Ancient spiders on Moa’s Ark? - Biogeography, taxonomy and systematics of the enigmatic odd-clawed spiders

摩亚方舟上有远古蜘蛛吗？

• 批准号: 427359627
• 负责人: Dr. Danilo Harms, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Zoologisches Institut und Museum
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/427359627?language=en
• 关键词: Ancient; spiders; Moa; Ark; Biogeography

Australasia is one of the most interesting biogeographical regions in the world but the impact of geological and climatic events on the evolutionary history and diversification of the present fauna are still not well understood. New Zealand may or may not have been submerged during the Oligocene marine transgression causing major (and potentially total) local extinction whereas Australia has undergone rapid aridification in the last 20 million years from a continent once covered with lush rainforests to the arid deserts that dominate today. Here, we will investigate an ancient lineage of arachnids, the odd-clawed spiders (Gradungulidae), which are only occurring in forests and cave-like habitats of eastern Australia and Southern New Zealand. Using a comprehensive taxon sampling we will not only address the taxonomy and phylogeny of this enigmatic family using morphological and molecular methods, but will also test whether these spiders are post-Oligocene arrivers in New Zealand (“Goodbye Gondwana” hypothesis) as implied by a recent transcriptomic study challenging the spider tree of life. Furthermore, we will test a model of mesic biome evolution in Australia for ancient relict lineages and explore recently-proposed hypotheses about the biogeographical structure and evolutionary capacity of a moisture-dependent relict lineage on this rapidly drying continent. We will use a combined approach of targeted field collection, traditional genetic (Sanger) and novel genomic (UCE) methods, biogeographical analyses, modelling approaches and taxonomy to unravel the evolutionary history of this truly enigmatic spider lineage endemic to Australasia.

澳大利亚是世界上最有趣的生物地理区域之一，但地质和气候事件对当前动物的进化历史和多样化的影响仍然不太了解。在渐新世海洋违法行为期间，新西兰可能会淹没，也可能不会被淹没，从而导致重大（且可能是全部）局部扩展，而澳大利亚在过去的2000万年中经历了快速的干旱化，从曾经连续覆盖着郁郁葱葱的雨林到今天占主导地位的干旱沙漠。在这里，我们将研究一个古老的蜘蛛，奇怪的蜘蛛（Gradungulidae），它们仅发生在澳大利亚东部和新西兰南部的森林和洞穴状栖息地中。使用全面的分类单元抽样，我们不仅将使用形态学和分子方法解决该神秘家族的分类学和系统发育，而且还将测试这些蜘蛛是否是新西兰的 - 新西兰（Goodbye Gondwana”假设），这暗示着最近转录的转录组研究挑战者的生活树暗示。此外，我们将测试澳大利亚的MESIC BIOME进化模型的古代文物谱系，并探讨有关在这个快速干燥界的水分依赖性遗物谱系的生物地理结构和进化能力的最近提出的假设。我们将使用针对性的现场收集，传统遗传（Sanger）和新型基因组方法，生物地理学分析，建模方法和分类法的联合方法来揭示这种真正神秘的蜘蛛谱系谱系对澳大利亚的进化史。