Amédégnato C, Chapco W, Litzenberger G
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPRESA 8079 ESE Laboratoire d'Entomologie, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 45 rue de Buffon 75005 Paris, France.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2003 Oct;29(1):115-9. doi: 10.1016/s1055-7903(03)00074-5.
Molecular phylogenetic methods provide a useful tool for critically evaluating competing biogeographic hypotheses. This paper focuses on conjectures at the intercontinental level. An earlier phylogeographic study of the grasshopper subfamily Melanoplinae examined relationships among taxa occupying the Americas and Eurasia. The objective was to test which of three scenarios best described the subfamily's origins and patterns of intercontinental movement. It was tentatively proposed that the melanopline grasshoppers evolved somewhere in the Americas and spread to the Old World. The present article, by including additional Neotropical species, not only upholds that conjecture, but is able to identify South America as the site of origin. Phylogenetic analysis indicates a direction of dispersal: South America-->North America-->Eurasia, that is opposite to what was previously believed. This study also provides, for the first time, a preliminary molecular phylogeny of selected South American melanopline genera.
分子系统发育方法为批判性评估相互竞争的生物地理学假说提供了一个有用的工具。本文聚焦于洲际层面的推测。早期一项关于蚱蜢亚科黑蝗亚科的系统地理学研究考察了分布于美洲和欧亚大陆的分类群之间的关系。目的是测试三种情景中的哪一种最能描述该亚科的起源和洲际迁移模式。曾初步提出黑蝗亚科蚱蜢在美洲的某个地方进化并扩散到旧大陆。本文通过纳入更多新热带物种，不仅支持了这一推测，还能够确定南美洲为起源地。系统发育分析表明了一个扩散方向：南美洲→北美洲→欧亚大陆，这与之前的认知相反。这项研究还首次提供了所选南美黑蝗亚科属的初步分子系统发育情况。
