Many Eyes on Many Eyes: A Diverse Look at Arachnology
Phylogenomics and morphometrics illuminate patterns of character evolution of historically delimiting characters in camel spiders (Arachnida: Solifugae: Eremobatidae)
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
9:57 AM – 10:10 AM PT
Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 109
Senior Curator Denver Museum of Nature & Science Denver, Colorado
Male and female genital morphology is the leading diagnostic character in camel spider systematics and is the basis for current solifuge taxonomy. Structures vary across multiple taxonomic levels; however, taxonomic descriptions are often restricted to qualitative descriptions of size and complex shapes. Limiting shape descriptions to a single qualitative descriptor excludes the consideration for variation that may exist within genera, or between populations of the same species. As part of an in progress taxonomic revision of Therobatinae (Arachnida: Solifugae: Eremobatidae), here we present a 2-dimenstional (2D) morphological analysis of genital morphology using an Elliptical Fourier (EF) approach for closed outlines, in addition to an analysis of traditionally used measures in a phylogenetic context. Using ancestral state reconstruction and ultra-conserved elements (UCE), we examined how size and shape of traditionally used delimiting evolved across Therobatinae. ASR results suggests that size, specifically length, can be phylogenetically informative, whereas similar shapes may have derived convergently. Investigation into ubiquitously used character sets within Therobatinae will be used to better inform taxonomic boundaries, including the morphological patterns formerly used to establish current taxonomic boundaries.