Scientists discover when beetles became prolific

The results of a battery of mathematical models used by the scientists to reconstruct the evolution of the 68-gene dataset have been published in the Royal Society Open Science.

The scientists were able to build a robust evolutionary tree of beetles after a year and a half of running on a supercomputer at the University of Bristol's Advanced Computing Research Centre. One of the most comprehensive evolutionary trees of beetles was provided by their findings.

Different beetle clades diversified independently, as various new ecological opportunities opened up.

An updated classification of beetles has been drawn up by the international group of 17 scientists. A new classification system has been put in place to recognize beetle families.

Robin Kundrata, an entomologist from the University in the Czech Republic who participated in the study, said that the results are congruent with previous data.

The most diverse group of animals ever known to exist are beetles, which can be found in the local park and tropical rainforests. The silent rulers of our shared planet are the six-legged walking jewels. Every fourth animal species is a beetle. 400 thousand species have been described, making them one of the most important stakeholders.

Scientists have been bugged by the diversity of beetles for hundreds of years. The theory of evolution from studying beetles was inspired by some of the most famous biologists of all time, such as Darwin and Wallace.

Understanding the origins of six-legged biodiversity is difficult. The oldest beetle fossils date back to 295 million years ago. Scientists now have a better idea of what happened that gave beetles their cutting edge.

Evolution is an unusual scientific endeavor. The study's co-author, who is also from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, said that you can't do lab experiments and look at evolution backwards. In our case, we focused on the genetics of living beetles and their fossils to draw up an updated understanding of their evolutionary history.

More information: Integrated phylogenomics and fossil data illuminate the evolution of beetles, Royal Society Open Science (2022). royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211771 Journal information: Royal Society Open Science Citation: Scientists discover when beetles became prolific (2022, March 22) retrieved 22 March 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-03-scientists-beetles-prolific.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.