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How old are dragonflies and damselflies? Odonata (Insecta) transcriptomics resolve familial relationships

Manpreet Kohli, Harald Letsch, Carola Greve, Olivier Béthoux, Isabelle Deregnaucourt, Shanlin Liu, Xin Zhou, Alexander Donath, Christoph Mayer, Lars Podsiadlowski, Ryuichiro Machida, Oliver Niehuis, Jes Rust, Torsten Wappler, Xin Yu, Bernhard Misof, Jessica Ware
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.07.191718
Manpreet Kohli
1Department of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
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  • For correspondence: mkohli@amnh.org harald.letsch@univie.ac.at
Harald Letsch
2Department for Animal Biodiversity, Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria
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  • For correspondence: mkohli@amnh.org harald.letsch@univie.ac.at
Carola Greve
3LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (LOEWE-TBG), Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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Olivier Béthoux
4Sorbonne Université, MNHN, CNRS, Centre de recherche sur la Paléontologie – Paris (CR2P), Paris, France
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Isabelle Deregnaucourt
4Sorbonne Université, MNHN, CNRS, Centre de recherche sur la Paléontologie – Paris (CR2P), Paris, France
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Shanlin Liu
5Department of Entomology, China Agricultural University, 100193 Beijing, People’s Republic of China
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Xin Zhou
5Department of Entomology, China Agricultural University, 100193 Beijing, People’s Republic of China
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Alexander Donath
6Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Zentrum für Molekulare Biodiversitätsforschung, Bonn, Germany
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Christoph Mayer
6Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Zentrum für Molekulare Biodiversitätsforschung, Bonn, Germany
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Lars Podsiadlowski
6Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Zentrum für Molekulare Biodiversitätsforschung, Bonn, Germany
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Ryuichiro Machida
7Sugadaira Montane Research Center, University of Tsukuba, Sugadaira Kogen Ueda, Nagano, Japan
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Oliver Niehuis
8Department of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Institute of Biology I (Zoology), Albert Ludwig University, Freiburg, Germany
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Jes Rust
9Natural History Department, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
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Torsten Wappler
9Natural History Department, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
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Xin Yu
10College of Life Sciences, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing, 401331, China
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Bernhard Misof
11Zoological Research Museum (ZFMK), Bonn University, Bonn, Germany
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Jessica Ware
1Department of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
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Summary

Dragonflies and damselflies, representing the insect order Odonata, are among the earliest flying insects with living (extant) representatives. However, unravelling details of their long evolutionary history, such as egg laying (oviposition) strategies, is impeded by unresolved phylogenetic relationships, an issue particularly prevalent in damselfly families and fossil lineages. Here we present the first transcriptome-based phylogenetic reconstruction of Odonata, analyzing 2,980 protein-coding genes in 105 species representing nearly all of the order’s families (except Austropetaliidae and Neopetaliidae). All damselfly families and most dragonfly families are recovered as monophyletic groups. Our Molecular clock estimates suggest that crown-Zygoptera (damselflies) and -Anisoptera (dragonflies) both arose during the late Triassic. Several of the observed long inner branches in our topology are indicative of the extinction of once flourishing lineages. We also find that exophytic egg laying behaviour with a reduced ovipositor evolved in certain dragonflies during the late Jurassic / early Cretaceous. Lastly, we find that certain fossils have an unexpected deterring impact in divergence dating analysis.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 07, 2020.
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How old are dragonflies and damselflies? Odonata (Insecta) transcriptomics resolve familial relationships
Manpreet Kohli, Harald Letsch, Carola Greve, Olivier Béthoux, Isabelle Deregnaucourt, Shanlin Liu, Xin Zhou, Alexander Donath, Christoph Mayer, Lars Podsiadlowski, Ryuichiro Machida, Oliver Niehuis, Jes Rust, Torsten Wappler, Xin Yu, Bernhard Misof, Jessica Ware
bioRxiv 2020.07.07.191718; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.07.191718
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How old are dragonflies and damselflies? Odonata (Insecta) transcriptomics resolve familial relationships
Manpreet Kohli, Harald Letsch, Carola Greve, Olivier Béthoux, Isabelle Deregnaucourt, Shanlin Liu, Xin Zhou, Alexander Donath, Christoph Mayer, Lars Podsiadlowski, Ryuichiro Machida, Oliver Niehuis, Jes Rust, Torsten Wappler, Xin Yu, Bernhard Misof, Jessica Ware
bioRxiv 2020.07.07.191718; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.07.191718

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