DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cb098
title: Data from: Widespread and persistent invasions of terrestrial habitats coincident with larval feeding behavior transitions during snail-killing fly evolution (Diptera: Sciomyzidae)

description: Background: Transitions in habitats and feeding behaviors were fundamental
 to the diversification of life on Earth. There is ongoing debate regarding
 the typical directionality of transitions between aquatic and terrestrial
 habitats and the mechanisms responsible for the preponderance of
 terrestrial to aquatic transitions. Snail-killing flies (Diptera:
 Sciomyzidae) represent an excellent model system to study such transitions
 because their larvae display a range of feeding behaviors, being
 predators, parasitoids or saprophages of a variety of mollusks in
 freshwater, shoreline and dry terrestrial habitats. The remarkable genus
 Tetanocera (Tetanocerini) occupies five larval feeding groups and all of
 the habitat types mentioned above. This study has four principal
 objectives: (i) construct a robust estimate of phylogeny for Tetanocera
 and Tetanocerini, (ii) estimate the evolutionary transitions in larval
 feeding behaviors and habitats, (iii) test the monophyly of feeding groups
 and (iv) identify mechanisms underlying sciomyzid habitat and feeding
 behavior evolution. Results: Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood
 analyses of molecular data provided strong support that the Sciomyzini,
 Tetanocerini and Tetanocera are monophyletic. However, the monophyly of
 many behavioral groupings was rejected via phylogenetic constraint
 analyses. We determined that (i) the ancestral sciomyzid lineage was
 terrestrial, (ii) there was a single terrestrial to aquatic habitat
 transition early in the evolution of the Tetanocerini and (iii) there were
 at least 10 independent aquatic to terrestrial habitat transitions and at
 least 15 feeding behavior transitions during tetanocerine phylogenesis.
 The ancestor of Tetanocera was aquatic with five lineages making
 independent transitions to terrestrial habitats and seven making
 independent transitions in feeding behaviors. Conclusions: The
 preponderance of aquatic to terrestrial transitions in sciomyzids goes
 against the trend generally observed across eukaryotes. Damp shoreline
 habitats are likely transitional where larvae can change habitat but still
 have similar prey available. Transitioning from aquatic to terrestrial
 habitats is likely easier than the reverse for sciomyzids because
 morphological characters associated with air-breathing while under the
 water's surface are lost rather than gained, and sciomyzids
 originated and diversified during a general drying period in Earth's
 history. Our results imply that any animal lineage having aquatic and
 terrestrial members, respiring the same way in both habitats and having
 the same type of food available in both habitats could show a similar
 pattern of multiple independent habitat transitions coincident with
 changes in behavioral and morphological traits.
description: 115_Sciomyzidae_Garli_ML_5_search_reps115_Sciomyzidae_Garli_ML_200_bootstrap_reps115_Sciomyzidae_MrBayes115_Scio_RAxML_Unconstrained115_Scio_RAxML_Renocerinae_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Unconstrained59_Sciomyzidae_Aquatic1_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Aquatic2_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Shoreline_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Shoreline2_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Slug_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Succineid_constrained59_Sciomyzidae_Terrestrial_constrained