Data from: Old World and New World Phasmatodea: phylogenomics resolve the evolutionary history of stick and leaf insects

Phasmatodea comprises over 3,000 extant species and stands out as one of
the last remaining insect orders for which a robust, higher-level
phylogenetic hypothesis is lacking. New research suggests that the extant
diversity is the result of a surprisingly recent and rapid radiation that
has been difficult to resolve with standard Sanger sequence data. In order
to resolve the early branching events of stick and leaf insects, we
analyzed transcriptomes from 61 species, including 38 Phasmatodea species
comprising all major clades and 23 outgroup taxa, including all other
Polyneoptera orders. Using a custom-made ortholog set based on reference
genomes from four species, we identified on average 2,274 orthologous
genes in the sequenced transcriptomes. We generated various sub-alignments
and performed maximum-likelihood analyses on several representative
datasets to evaluate the effect of missing data and matrix composition on
our phylogenetic estimates. Based on our new data, we are able to reliably
resolve the deeper nodes between the principal lineages of extant
Phasmatodea. Among Euphasmatodea, we provide strong evidence for a basal
dichotomy of Aschiphasmatodea and all remaining euphasmatodeans, the
Neophasmatodea. Within the latter clade, we recovered a previously
unrecognized major New World and Old World lineage, for which we introduce
the new names Oriophasmata tax. nov. (“Eastern phasmids”) and
Occidophasmata tax. nov. (“Western phasmids”). Occidophasmata comprise
Diapheromerinae, Pseudophasmatinae, and Agathemera, whereas all remaining
lineages form the Oriophasmata, including Heteropterygidae, Phylliinae,
Bacillus, Lonchodidae (Necrosciinae + Lonchodinae), Clitumninae,
Cladomorphinae, and Lanceocercata. We furthermore performed a divergence
time analysis and reconstructed the historical biogeography for stick and
leaf insects. Phasmatodea either originated in Southeast Asia or in the
New World. Our results suggest that the extant distribution of Phasmatodea
is largely the result of dispersal events in a recently and rapidly
diversified insect lineage rather than the result of vicariant processes.