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

该项目旨在通过系统发育、形态学、宏观生态学和生物地理学数据的结合，了解非洲南部草食性金龟子（鞘翅目：金龟子科）异常多样性的进化过程。基于南非金龟子的综合系统发育框架，我们将在一系列据称对物种和群落进化有影响的因素中寻找其多样性的驱动因素，如气候、土壤、性选择、植被覆盖和物种之间的竞争。这将涉及范围进化的研究，包括身体形态空间和生殖器形态测量的数据。多个标本样本和基于树的物种边界推断将在该项目中发挥至关重要的作用，因为它们的集合用于检测特征特征的定向选择，这有望揭示物种形成过程。以树为基础的比较研究是通过对不同气候包络条件下的叶脉组合进行遗传比较和因子分析来完成的。通过这两种方法的结合，我们将更深入地了解斑块多样化的驱动因素，因为我们将能够探测到决定组合组成的生态和历史因素，在那里发生了并发、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.