Neglected no longer: Phylogenomic resolution of higher-level relationships in Solifugae

Siddharth S Kulkarni; Hugh G Steiner; Erika L Garcia; Hernán Iuri; R Ryan Jones; Jesús A Ballesteros; Guilherme Gainett; Matthew R Graham; Danilo Harms; Robin Lyle; Andrés A Ojanguren-Affilastro; Carlos E Santibañez-López; Gustavo Silva de Miranda; Paula E Cushing; Efrat Gavish-Regev; Prashant P Sharma

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107684

Neglected no longer: Phylogenomic resolution of higher-level relationships in Solifugae

iScience. 2023 Aug 19;26(9):107684. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107684. eCollection 2023 Sep 15.

Authors

Siddharth S Kulkarni¹, Hugh G Steiner¹, Erika L Garcia², Hernán Iuri³, R Ryan Jones², Jesús A Ballesteros⁴, Guilherme Gainett¹, Matthew R Graham⁵, Danilo Harms⁶, Robin Lyle⁷, Andrés A Ojanguren-Affilastro³, Carlos E Santibañez-López⁸, Gustavo Silva de Miranda⁹, Paula E Cushing², Efrat Gavish-Regev¹⁰, Prashant P Sharma¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
² Department of Zoology, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver, CO 80205, USA.
³ División de Aracnología, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia", Buenos Aires 1405DJR, Argentina.
⁴ Department of Biology, Kean University, Union, NJ 07083, USA.
⁵ Department of Biology, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226, USA.
⁶ Museum of Nature Hamburg - Zoology, Department of Invertebrates, Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Hamburg, Germany.
⁷ Biosystematics: Arachnology, ARC-Plant Health and Protection, Pretoria, South Africa.
⁸ Department of Biology, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT 06810, USA.
⁹ Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.
¹⁰ The National Natural History Collections, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.

Abstract

Advanced sequencing technologies have expedited resolution of higher-level arthropod relationships. Yet, dark branches persist, principally among groups occurring in cryptic habitats. Among chelicerates, Solifugae ("camel spiders") is the last order lacking a higher-level phylogeny and have thus been historically characterized as "neglected [arachnid] cousins". Though renowned for aggression, remarkable running speed, and xeric adaptation, inferring solifuge relationships has been hindered by inaccessibility of diagnostic morphological characters, whereas molecular investigations have been limited to one of 12 recognized families. Our phylogenomic dataset via capture of ultraconserved elements sampling all extant families recovered a well-resolved phylogeny, with two distinct groups of New World taxa nested within a broader Paleotropical radiation. Divergence times using fossil calibrations inferred that Solifugae radiated by the Permian, and most families diverged prior to the Paleogene-Cretaceous extinction, likely driven by continental breakup. We establish Boreosolifugae new suborder uniting five Laurasian families, and Australosolifugae new suborder uniting seven Gondwanan families using morphological and biogeographic signal.

Keywords: Evolutionary biology; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Zoology.