Collaborative Proposal: Shedding Light on firefly phylogenetic systematics and the evolution of their carnal signal types

很少有生物能比萤火虫更能吸引人类的注意力和想象力。然而，我们对2000种萤火虫知之甚少。萤火虫在医学以及进化、生态和行为研究中扮演着重要的角色。新物种经常被描述，而其他许多物种正处于迫在眉睫的灭绝威胁之下。缺乏的是一棵萤火虫的生命树(即系统发育图)，以帮助组织所有物种并探索它们的进化史。在构建这棵树之后，研究人员将探索萤火虫不同求偶信号(闪光、发光或化学气味)的进化，同时探索产生光的器官的结构和形状。此外，这项研究将确定传感器(眼睛和天线)的大小和形状的权衡，当交配信号从气味变成光(发光或闪烁)时，反之亦然。有了这些数据，就可以预测萤火虫化石和博物馆标本的信号和行为，并回答关于它们进化的具体问题。该项目将培训研究生，并包括宣传和公民科学努力，以积极参与公众。网站、视频和识别密钥将帮助科学家和公众更好地了解美国和世界各地萤火虫的多样性和生态。这种生物发光广泛分布在生命之树上。萤火虫(鞘翅目，灯蝇科)是种类最多、最广为人知、研究最深入的生物发光类群。成年萤火虫的生物发光和闪光模式经常被用作特定物种求偶信号的教科书例子。然而，我们仍然对它们的系统发育关系和性交流系统的进化一无所知。我们将重建世界范围内各种萤火虫的系统发育图。它们的性信号、发光器官和信号受体的多样性使这些甲虫成为研究特征进化如何与性信号相关并可能影响物种多样性的理想谱系。这项研究有三个主要目标：1)利用NGS和形态数据集，基于广泛的分类单元采样(~350个分类群)，重建首次大规模的蝴蝶科系统发育假说；2)基于现存和化石分类群的光器、眼睛和触角形态以及稀有博物馆标本，表征与三种主要有性交流类型相关的形态表型；3)重建萤火虫性别信号模式的进化史，并检验信号模式与物种多样性之间的关系。这项研究将促进对灯甲科的研究，并提供有关性信号和多样化作用的重要经验数据，这些数据将对许多学科的研究人员普遍使用。

Few organisms capture human attention and imagination better than fireflies. Yet, we know exceptionally little about the 2000 species of fireflies. Fireflies play important roles in medical sciences and evolutionary, ecological, and behavioral studies. New species are described regularly while many others are under imminent threat of extinction. What is lacking is a tree of life (i.e., a phylogeny) for fireflies to help organize all species and explore their evolutionary history. After constructing this tree, the research will explore the evolution of the different courtship signals of fireflies (flashes, glows, or chemical odors), while exploring the structure and shape of the organ that produces the light. In addition, the research will determine the trade-off in the size and shape of sensors (eyes and antenna), when the mating signal changes from odors to light (glows or flashes) and vice versa. With these data, the signals and behavior of fossil fireflies and museum specimens can be predicted and specific questions about their evolution can be answered. The project will train graduate students and include outreach and citizen science efforts to actively engage the public. Websites, videos, and identification keys will assist both scientists and the public to better understand the diversity and ecology of fireflies across the US and world. Bioluminescence is widely scattered across the tree of life. Fireflies (Coleoptera, Lampyridae) are the most diverse, well-known, and well-studied bioluminescent group. The bioluminescence and flash patterns of adult fireflies are often used as textbook example of species-specific courtship signals. However, we still remain in the dark about their phylogenetic relationships and the evolution of their sexual communication systems. We will reconstruct a phylogeny across the worldwide diversity of fireflies. The diversity of their sexual signals, light producing organs, and signal receptors make these beetles an ideal lineage to study how the evolution of traits associated with sexual signaling and may have affected species diversity. This research has three major goals: 1) reconstruct the first large-scale phylogenetic hypotheses for Lampyridae based on extensive taxon sampling (~350 taxa) using both NGS and morphological data sets; 2) characterize the morphological phenotypes associated with the three main types of sexual communication based on light organ, eye, and antennal morphology of extant and fossil taxa, as well as of rare museum specimens; 3) reconstruct the evolutionary history of firefly sexual signal modes, and test for relationships between signal mode and species diversification. This research will catalyze studies of the Lampyridae and provide important empirical data on the role of sexual signaling and diversification that will be of general use to researchers across numerous disciplines.