Ancient spiders on Moa’s Ark? - Biogeography, taxonomy and systematics of the enigmatic odd-clawed spiders

摩亚方舟上有远古蜘蛛吗？

• 批准号: 427359627
• 负责人: Dr. Danilo Harms, Ph.D.
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Zoologisches Institut und Museum
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/427359627?language=en
• 关键词: Ancient; spiders; Moa; Ark; Biogeography

Australasia is one of the most interesting biogeographical regions in the world but the impact of geological and climatic events on the evolutionary history and diversification of the present fauna are still not well understood. New Zealand may or may not have been submerged during the Oligocene marine transgression causing major (and potentially total) local extinction whereas Australia has undergone rapid aridification in the last 20 million years from a continent once covered with lush rainforests to the arid deserts that dominate today. Here, we will investigate an ancient lineage of arachnids, the odd-clawed spiders (Gradungulidae), which are only occurring in forests and cave-like habitats of eastern Australia and Southern New Zealand. Using a comprehensive taxon sampling we will not only address the taxonomy and phylogeny of this enigmatic family using morphological and molecular methods, but will also test whether these spiders are post-Oligocene arrivers in New Zealand (“Goodbye Gondwana” hypothesis) as implied by a recent transcriptomic study challenging the spider tree of life. Furthermore, we will test a model of mesic biome evolution in Australia for ancient relict lineages and explore recently-proposed hypotheses about the biogeographical structure and evolutionary capacity of a moisture-dependent relict lineage on this rapidly drying continent. We will use a combined approach of targeted field collection, traditional genetic (Sanger) and novel genomic (UCE) methods, biogeographical analyses, modelling approaches and taxonomy to unravel the evolutionary history of this truly enigmatic spider lineage endemic to Australasia.

澳大拉西亚是世界上最有趣的地理区域之一，但地质和气候事件对现代动物群的进化历史和多样性的影响仍然没有得到很好的理解。新西兰可能或可能没有被淹没在渐新世海侵造成重大（和潜在的全部）当地灭绝，而澳大利亚经历了快速干旱化，在过去的2000万年从一个大陆曾经覆盖着郁郁葱葱的热带雨林到干旱的沙漠，今天占主导地位。在这里，我们将调查蜘蛛类动物的古老谱系，奇爪蜘蛛（Gradungulidae），这只发生在澳大利亚东部和新西兰南部的森林和洞穴样栖息地。使用一个全面的分类群采样，我们不仅将解决这个神秘的家庭使用形态学和分子方法的分类和进化，但也将测试这些蜘蛛是否是后渐新世抵达新西兰（“再见冈瓦纳”假说）所暗示的最近的转录组学研究挑战蜘蛛树的生命。此外，我们将测试一个模型的mesic生物群落进化在澳大利亚的古老的孑遗谱系，并探讨最近提出的假说的生态地理结构和进化能力的水分依赖的孑遗谱系在这个迅速干燥的大陆。我们将使用有针对性的现场收集，传统的遗传（桑格）和新的基因组（UCE）方法，地理分析，建模方法和分类相结合的方法来解开这个真正神秘的蜘蛛谱系特有的澳大拉西亚的进化历史。