CBGP, INRA, CIRAD, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro, University of Montpellier, 755 Avenue du campus Agropolis, 34988, Montferrier-sur-Lez, France.
CNRS, UMR 5554 Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, Place Eugène Bataillon, 34095, Montpellier, France.
Nat Commun. 2018 Nov 30;9(1):5089. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07537-8.
The rise of Neogene C grasslands is one of the most drastic changes recently experienced by the biosphere. A central - and widely debated - hypothesis posits that Neogene grasslands acted as a major adaptive zone for herbivore lineages. We test this hypothesis with a novel model system, the Sesamiina stemborer moths and their associated host-grasses. Using a comparative phylogenetic framework integrating paleoenvironmental proxies we recover a negative correlation between the evolutionary trajectories of insects and plants. Our results show that paleoenvironmental changes generated opposing macroevolutionary dynamics in this insect-plant system and call into question the role of grasslands as a universal adaptive cradle. This study illustrates the importance of implementing environmental proxies in diversification analyses to disentangle the relative impacts of biotic and abiotic drivers of macroevolutionary dynamics.
新近，热带稀树草原的兴起是生物圈经历的最剧烈的变化之一。一个核心的——并且广受争议的——假说认为，热带稀树草原是食草动物谱系的一个主要适应区。我们使用一个新颖的模型系统，芝麻螟及其相关的宿主草类，来检验这个假说。通过整合古环境替代指标的比较系统发育框架，我们得出昆虫和植物的进化轨迹之间存在负相关。我们的结果表明，古环境变化在这个昆虫-植物系统中产生了相反的宏观进化动态，这使得草原作为普遍适应的摇篮的作用受到质疑。本研究说明了在多样性分析中实施环境替代指标以区分生物和非生物驱动因素对宏观进化动态的相对影响的重要性。
