Phylogeny and historical biogeography of ancient assassin spiders (Araneae: Archaeidae) in the Australian mesic zone: evidence for Miocene speciation within Tertiary refugia
- PMID:22040763
- DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2011.10.009
Phylogeny and historical biogeography of ancient assassin spiders (Araneae: Archaeidae) in the Australian mesic zone: evidence for Miocene speciation within Tertiary refugia
Abstract
The rainforests, wet sclerophyll forests and temperate heathlands of the Australian mesic zone are home to a diverse and highly endemic biota, including numerous old endemic lineages restricted to refugial, mesic biomes. A growing number of phylogeographic studies have attempted to explain the origins and diversification of the Australian mesic zone biota, in order to test and better understand the mode and tempo of historical speciation within Australia. Assassin spiders (family Archaeidae) are a lineage of iconic araneomorph spiders, characterised by their antiquity, remarkable morphology and relictual biogeography on the southern continents. The Australian assassin spider fauna is characterised by a high diversity of allopatric species, many of which are restricted to individual mountains or montane systems, and all of which are closely tied to mesic and/or refugial habitats in the east and extreme south-west of mainland Australia. We tested the phylogeny and vicariant biogeography of the Australian Archaeidae (genus Austrarchaea Forster & Platnick), using a multi-locus molecular approach. Fragments from six mitochondrial genes (COI, COII, tRNA-K, tRNA-D, ATP8, ATP6) and one nuclear protein-coding gene (Histone H3) were used to infer phylogenetic relationships and to explore the phylogeographic origins of the diverse Australian fauna. Bayesian analyses of the complete molecular dataset, along with differentially-partitioned Bayesian and parsimony analyses of a smaller concatenated dataset, revealed the presence of three major Australian lineages, each with non-overlapping distributions in north-eastern Queensland, mid-eastern Australia and southern Australia, respectively. Divergence date estimation using mitochondrial data and a rate-calibrated relaxed molecular clock revealed that major lineages diverged in the early Tertiary period, prior to the final rifting of Australia from East Antarctica. Subsequent speciation occurred during the Miocene (23-5.3 million years ago), with tropical and subtropical taxa diverging in the early-mid Miocene, prior to southern and temperate taxa in the mid-late Miocene. Area cladograms reconciled with Bayesian chronograms for all known Archaeidae in southern and south-eastern Australia revealed seven potentially vicariant biogeographic barriers in eastern Queensland, New South Wales and southern Australia, each proposed and discussed in relation to other mesic zone taxa. Five of these barriers were inferred as being of early Miocene age, and implicated in the initial vicariant separation of endemic regional clades. Phylogeographic results for Australian Archaeidae are congruent with a model of sequential allopatric speciation in Tertiary refugia, as driven by the contraction and fragmentation of Australia's mesic biomes during the Miocene. Assassin spiders clearly offer great potential for further testing historical biogeographic processes in temperate and eastern Australia, and are a useful group for better understanding the biology and biogeography of the Australian mesic zone.
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Similar articles
- Diversification of the mygalomorph spider genus Aname (Araneae: Anamidae) across the Australian arid zone: Tracing the evolution and biogeography of a continent-wide radiation.Rix MG, Wilson JD, Huey JA, Hillyer MJ, Gruber K, Harvey MS.Rix MG, et al.Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2021 Jul;160:107127. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2021.107127. Epub 2021 Mar 2.Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2021.PMID:33667632
- Systematics of the lizard family pygopodidae with implications for the diversification of Australian temperate biotas.Jennings WB, Pianka ER, Donnellan S.Jennings WB, et al.Syst Biol. 2003 Dec;52(6):757-80.Syst Biol. 2003.PMID:14668116
- Post-Eocene climate change across continental Australia and the diversification of Australasian spiny trapdoor spiders (Idiopidae: Arbanitinae).Rix MG, Cooper SJB, Meusemann K, Klopfstein S, Harrison SE, Harvey MS, Austin AD.Rix MG, et al.Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2017 Apr;109:302-320. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2017.01.008. Epub 2017 Jan 23.Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2017.PMID:28126515
- Birth of a biome: insights into the assembly and maintenance of the Australian arid zone biota.Byrne M, Yeates DK, Joseph L, Kearney M, Bowler J, Williams MA, Cooper S, Donnellan SC, Keogh JS, Leys R, Melville J, Murphy DJ, Porch N, Wyrwoll KH.Byrne M, et al.Mol Ecol. 2008 Oct;17(20):4398-417. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2008.03899.x. Epub 2008 Aug 27.Mol Ecol. 2008.PMID:18761619Review.
- Biogeography and speciation of terrestrial fauna in the south-western Australian biodiversity hotspot.Rix MG, Edwards DL, Byrne M, Harvey MS, Joseph L, Roberts JD.Rix MG, et al.Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2015 Aug;90(3):762-93. doi: 10.1111/brv.12132. Epub 2014 Aug 15.Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2015.PMID:25125282Review.
Cited by
- New species of Austropurcellia, cryptic short-range endemic mite harvestmen (Arachnida, Opiliones, Cyphophthalmi) from Australia's Wet Tropics biodiversity hotspot.Jay KR, Popkin-Hall ZR, Coblens MJ, Oberski JT, Sharma PP, Boyer SL.Jay KR, et al.Zookeys. 2016 May 4;(586):37-93. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.586.6774. eCollection 2016.Zookeys. 2016.PMID:27199608Free PMC article.
- Miocene biome turnover drove conservative body size evolution across Australian vertebrates.Brennan IG, Keogh JS.Brennan IG, et al.Proc Biol Sci. 2018 Oct 17;285(1889):20181474. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1474.Proc Biol Sci. 2018.PMID:30333208Free PMC article.
- The world's most venomous spider is a species complex: systematics of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atracidae: Atrax robustus).Loria SF, Frank SC, Dupérré N, Smith HM, Jones B, Buzatto BA, Harms D.Loria SF, et al.BMC Ecol Evol. 2025 Jan 13;25(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s12862-024-02332-0.BMC Ecol Evol. 2025.PMID:39800689Free PMC article.
- Phylogeographic evidence for two mesic refugia in a biodiversity hotspot.Nistelberger H, Gibson N, Macdonald B, Tapper SL, Byrne M.Nistelberger H, et al.Heredity (Edinb). 2014 Nov;113(5):454-63. doi: 10.1038/hdy.2014.46. Epub 2014 Jul 2.Heredity (Edinb). 2014.PMID:24984607Free PMC article.
- Phylogeography of Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Macropus giganteus, Suggests a Mesic Refugium in Eastern Australia.Coghlan BA, Goldizen AW, Thomson VA, Seddon JM.Coghlan BA, et al.PLoS One. 2015 May 29;10(5):e0128160. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128160. eCollection 2015.PLoS One. 2015.PMID:26024370Free PMC article.
Publication types
MeSH terms
Substances
Related information
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources