Comparative phylogeogeography of South African chafers (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae) -inferring the evolution of diversity in a biodiversity hotspot.

拟议的项目旨在结合系统发育、形态、宏观生态和生物地理数据，了解南部非洲食草动物金龟子(鞘翅目：金龟科)特殊多样性背后的进化过程。基于南非海雀的全面系统发育框架，我们将在气候、土壤、性别选择、植被覆盖和物种间竞争等一系列因素中寻找它们多样性的驱动因素，这些因素被认为对物种和群落进化有影响。这将涉及对射程演变的研究，并包括身体形态空间和生殖器形态测量的数据。多个样本样本和物种边界的基于树的推断将在该项目中发挥关键作用，因为它们的集合被用于检测特征特征的定向选择，这有望揭示物种形成过程。基于树的比较研究是通过对不同气候包络中的金龟子组合的表型比较和对其组成的因子分析来完成的。通过这两种方法的结合，我们将对箔条多样化的驱动因素有更深入的了解，因为我们将能够发现决定组合组成的生态和历史因素，在那里发生共存、选择和进化。

The proposed project aims to understand the evolutionary processes underlying the exceptional diversity of herbivore chafer beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in southern Africa using a combination of phylogenetic, morphological, macroecological and biogeographical data. Based on a comprehensive phylogenetic framework of South African chafers we will search for the drivers of their diversity in an ensemble of factors that supposedly had influence on species and community evolution, such as climate, soil, sexual selection, vegetation cover, and competition between species. This will involve studies on the range evolution and include data of body morphospace and genital morphometry. Multiple specimen samples and tree-based inference of species boundaries will have crucial role in the project, since their ensemble is used to detect directed selection in character traits which will hopefully sheet light on processes during speciation. The tree-based comparative studies are completed by a phenetic comparison of the chafer assemblages in different climatic envelopes and a factor analysis of their composition. By combination of these two approaches we will get deeper insight for drivers of chafer diversification since we will be able to detect ecological and historical factors determining the assemblage composition, where concurrence, selection and evolution take place.