Combining molecular data sets with strongly heterogeneous taxon coverage enlightens the peculiar biogeographic history of stoneflies (Insecta: Plecoptera)

Extant members of the ancient insect order of stoneflies exhibit a disjunct, antitropical distribution, with one major lineage exclusively occurring in the Southern Hemisphere and the other, with few exceptions, on the Northern continents. Here, we address the biogeographic distribution and phylogenetic relationships of stoneflies using a phylogenetic workflow that combines both transcriptomic and Sanger sequence datasets with heterogeneous taxon coverage. We used a dataset comprising 2997 genes derived from the transcriptomes of 30 species and Sanger sequences of seven genes for 498 species. The backbone phylogeny was mainly inferred from the transcriptomic data, whereas the Sanger nucleotide sequence data provided high species density for divergence time estimation and diversification analyses. Our results show that the biogeographic pattern we observe today is primarily more likely shaped by long-distance over-land dispersal than by vicariance. We inferred that the ancestors of extan...