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Deep-time parallel evolution of myrmecoid syndrome in rove beetle symbionts of army ants

Munetoshi Maruyama, Joseph Parker
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/076315
Munetoshi Maruyama
1The Kyushu University Museum, Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka, Japan
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Joseph Parker
2Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
3Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
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  • For correspondence: jp2488@columbia.edu
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Abstract

Recent adaptive radiations provide striking examples of convergence, but the predictability of evolution over much deeper timescales is controversial, due to a scarcity of ancient clades exhibiting repetitive patterns of phenotypic evolution. Army ants are ecologically dominant arthropod predators of the world's tropics, with large nomadic colonies housing diverse communities of socially parasitic myrmecophiles. Remarkable among these are many species of rove beetle (Staphylinidae) that exhibit ant-mimicking “myrmecoid” body forms and are behaviorally accepted into their aggressive hosts' societies: emigrating with colonies and inhabiting temporary nest bivouacs, grooming and feeding with workers, but also consuming the brood. Here we demonstrate that myrmecoid rove beetles are strongly polyphyletic, with this novel adaptive morphological and behavioral syndrome having evolved at least twelve times during the evolution of a single staphylinid subfamily, Aleocharinae. Each independent myrmecoid clade is restricted to one zoogeographic region and highly host-specific on a single army ant genus. Dating estimates reveal that myrmecoid clades are separated by substantial phylogenetic distances—as much as 105 million years (My). All such groups arose in parallel during the Cenozoic, as army ants are proposed to have risen to ecological dominance. This work uncovers a rare example of an ancient system of complex morphological and behavioral convergence, with replicate beetle lineages following a predictable phenotypic trajectory during their parasitic coevolution with army ants.

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Posted September 20, 2016.
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Deep-time parallel evolution of myrmecoid syndrome in rove beetle symbionts of army ants
Munetoshi Maruyama, Joseph Parker
bioRxiv 076315; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/076315
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Deep-time parallel evolution of myrmecoid syndrome in rove beetle symbionts of army ants
Munetoshi Maruyama, Joseph Parker
bioRxiv 076315; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/076315

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