EVOLUTION’S NEW TREE OF LIFE
A new tree of life has recently been discovered.
As a result of a massive study, scientist have found evidence that insects evolved earlier and differently than previously thought. This has significant implications.
Insects have evolved in a myriad of ways: some develop the ability to fly, some live in cooperative societies, some have co-evolved with plants and animals. Some make us squirm, some make us sick, and some are quite beautiful to behold.
More than 100 researchers, from 10 countries, collaborated in an extensive study of phylogeny through the 1KITE project (1,000 Insect Transcriptome Evolution). The results were recently published in the journal Science.
The researchers studied insect and arthropod genomes, along with their relevant amino acid sequences, in order to estimate when the different orders of insects diverged.
Using molecular data from 144 select species, scientists could closely estimate their dates of origin and determine their interrelationships. These new findings warranted a number of corrections to previous chartings.
While the oldest insect fossil found dates back to about 412 million years ago, these new findings have led to a new theory and a newly configured tree of life.
The study showed that insects probably originated from remipedia, an obscure group of venomous crustaceans, first evolving about 480 million years ago, about the same time plants did. Both played important roles in developing our planet’s earliest ecosystems.
“This is the first large scale study including all insect lineages. It answers many long held questions about the evolution of the world’s largest and most diverse group of animals,” explains Dr Bjoern von Reumont, postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum London and co-author on the paper.
The new phylogenic tree highlights the most significant events in insect evolution, such as the developments of wings for flight and metamorphic capabilities.
It also provided dates for the appearance of all of the orders of insects. For example, hemipterans (aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, etc.) may have evolved in the Ordovician period (c. 373 million years ago).
Many insect orders, including earwigs, stoneflies, grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, cockroaches, mantids, and termites probably evolved in the Upper Carboniferous period (c. 302 million years ago).
Beetles, flies, wasps, ants, moths and butterflies, which all undergo a type of metamorphosis, are considered to be ‘higher insects,’ evolving more recently.
This study shows that the Hymenoptera, Diptera, and Lepidoptera orders underwent ‘spectacular diversifications’ in the Early Cretaceous period, at the same time that flowering plants were diversifying.
Pollen-loving bees evolved from predatory Crabronidae wasps, although insect pollination was well established before the first appearance of bees. Long-tongued bees and long-tubed flowers coevolved.
This study’s findings have even greater significance, beyond classification. They can help us to better understand the millions insect species alive today as well as their impact on our environment, our resources, and our health.
Read more about Beautiful Trees all this week on BeautifulNow. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
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