Manticores and Giant Tigers: Phylogeny and biogeography of the tiger beetle tribe Manticorini (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae)

Manticorini部落的成员是美国最鲜为人知的虎甲虫之一。一个属的物种数量估计从五个到一百多个不等。所有的蝎尾虎甲虫都是大型的、夜行性的、不会飞的，然而它们却分布在三个不同的大陆上。不会飞的大型甲虫是如何出现在被海洋隔开的大陆上的？在美国西南部，山地巨虎甲虫的种群也存在类似的模式。个体仅在索诺兰沙漠和奇瓦瓦沙漠中的孤立山脉中发现，但在低沙漠中没有发现。然而，后一种分布模式在地球历史上出现的时间可能比前一种涉及多个大陆的分布模式要晚。本计画将探讨虎甲虫的物种多样性与分布起源。了解这一群体中的物种数量及其分布范围将有助于保护工作。该项目将使用博物馆标本来评估目前的分子工具是否可以将长期死亡的个体纳入进化史研究。这些结果将有助于确定如何在未来的研究中最好地使用灭绝或濒危种群的博物馆标本。将利用社区科学和公共宣传从各物种分布区收集标本，这将提高区域科学素养。这个项目将指导研究生和本科生在现代系统学方法。这项研究的结果将被用来丰富在西班牙裔服务机构教授的生物课程的教材。该项目将涉及实地调查，从美国境内目前提出的物种和亚种范围内对蝎尾虎甲虫种群进行采样，采样将包括尝试重新收集博物馆标本中已知的种群。将使用超保守元件探针组采用高通量DNA测序的靶向捕获和富集方法。这套探测器是专门为蝎尾狮虎甲虫所属的甲虫亚目设计的。使用所得数据，系统发育树将被构建，以划定物种边界，重建祖先的范围，并评估博物馆标本的系统发育位置。这些结果将用于修订美国蝎尾狮的分类和重建其历史地理。一旦物种级别的分类群已经确定，他们将被纳入一个完整的部落Manticorini的基因组学和地理学分析。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Members of the tribe Manticorini are among the most poorly known tiger beetles in the United States. Estimates of the number of species in one genus ranges from as few as five to over a hundred. All manticorine tiger beetles are large, nocturnal, and flightless, yet they are found on three different continents. How did large, flightless beetles come to occur on continents separated by an ocean? In the American Southwest, a similar pattern exists among populations of the Montane Giant Tiger Beetle. Individuals are found only at mid-elevations on isolated mountains in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, but none of the intervening low desert. However, this latter distribution pattern likely emerged more recently in Earth’s history than the former involving multiple continents. This project will investigate species diversity and the origins of the distributions of manticorine tiger beetles. Understanding the number of species in this group and their ranges will aid conservation efforts. This project will use museum specimens to assess whether current molecular tools can incorporate long-dead individuals into studies of evolutionary history. These results will aid in determining how best to use museum specimens from extinct or endangered populations in future studies. Community science and public outreach will be employed to collect specimens from across species’ ranges, which will increase regional scientific literacy. This project will mentor graduate and undergraduate students in modern systematics methods. The results of this research will be used to enrich teaching materials for biology courses taught at a Hispanic Serving Institution. This project will involve fieldwork to sample populations of manticorine tiger beetles from across the ranges of currently proposed species and subspecies within the U.S. Sampling will include attempts to re-collecting populations known from museum specimens. A targeted capture and enrichment approach to high-throughput DNA sequencing will be employed using an ultraconserved element probe set. This probe set was designed specifically for use in the beetle suborder to which manticorine tiger beetles belong. Using the resultant data, phylogenetic trees will be constructed in order to delimit species boundaries, reconstruct ancestral ranges, and assess phylogenetic placement of museum specimens. These results will be used to revise the taxonomy of U.S. manticorines and reconstruct their historical biogeography. Once species-level taxa have been identified, they will be included in a phylogenomic and biogeographic analysis of the entire tribe Manticorini.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.