The spider tree of life: phylogeny of Araneae based on target-gene analyses from an extensive taxon sampling

RAMÍREZ, MARTÍN, J.; PIACENTINI, LUIS N.

Golden

Congreso; 20th ICA 2016 - International Society of Arachnology; 2016

International Society of Arachnology

We present the results of a project aimed at reconstructing the higher level cladistic relationships on Lycosidae, through a total evidence analysis. This work is the first phylogenetic analysis using morphological and molecular data that covers all the subfamilies of wolf spiders. We have collected morphological character data for a sample of more than 90 species of about 70 genera. The morphological dataset includes about 100 characters, covering those used in recent phylogenetic analyses of Lycosidae and Lycosoidea, including genitalic and somatic morphology. The molecular dataset includes mitochondrial (COI, NADH1 and 12S) and nuclear markers (28S, Wingless and Actin 5C) of more than 60 species distributed on more than 50 genera. Representatives of Trechaleidae, Pisauridae, Ctenidae, Oxyopidae and Thomisidae where included as outgroups. The analysis sheds light on the evolutionary history of biologically important characters for wolf spiders, such as changes of function in sclerites of the male genital bulb and their interaction with the female epigyne, the origin of the sheet webs, and the distribution of the knobbed setae on the female abdomen. The topology of the obtained tree generally agrees with previous hypotheses, except for the subfamilies Zoicinae and Wadicosinae, which are subsumed within Venoniinae and Pardosinae, respectively.