This is the continuation of a previous project that attempted to resolved the relationships within the superfamily Chalcidoidea (one of the most diverse groups of insects with an estimated diversity of 500,000 species !) using Sanger sequencing and morphological data. As expected both the markers and the morphological characters did not contain enough information to solve the relationships (you may take a look to our last publication to see where we are now) Thanks to recent developments in molecular sequencing technology and bioinformatics it should be possible to infer a more robust classifications. Our objectives are to 1) generate a robust molecular phylogeny of the Chalcidoidea using new data from transcriptomes and targeted DNA enrichment for 400+ species, 2) generate morphological data for 200+ fossils from Eocene and Cretaceous amber and combine these with a comprehensive morphological data set for extant taxa, 3) develop a revised classification of the Chalcidoidea in book form through a series of workshops and worldwide collaborations, and 4) make available information on the taxonomy, biology and distribution of over 31,000 available names and information in over 40,000 references. These products will be integrated with our past results using TaxonWorks, an online biodiversity informatics framework presently in development. This portal will enable long term exploration and expansion of our products via human interfaces, machine accessible Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), pipelines for analyses, and semantic approaches to data description.

Leader : J. Heraty UC Riverside, USA.

People Involved : A. Cruaud, J.-Y Rasplus, S. Nidelet.

Project founded by the National Science Foundation of the USA

more about the project

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Our contribution to the project : We are involved in sampling and morphological characters coding. We are in charge of building a phylogenetic hypothesis using Ultra Conserved Elements  (see our first results here). Ultimately our results will be combined with transcriptomic and anchor enriched genome regions to obtain a better resolved tree. Indeed the probable fast radiation of the group makes the resolution of the deeper relationships troublesome. We will also analyse three families with a more representative sampling to shed the light on their specific evolutionary history : the Agaonidae (pollinators of the fig trees), the Chalcididae (parasitoids) with our colleague G. Delvare from the CIRAD, and the Pteromalidae (parasitoids, a nightmare !) with our colleague R. Burks (UC Riverside).