ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2013
Flight loss linked to faster molecular evolution in insects.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed.
- Positive and relaxed selection on mitochondrial DNA in parasitic versus predatory mites.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- A muscle-centered hierarchical breakdown underlies flight loss during silkworm domestication.iScience · 2026Article
- Haplodiploidy accelerates mitogenome evolution in insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Evolution of theEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Dating in the Dark: Elevated Substitution Rates in Cave Cockroaches (Blattodea: Nocticolidae) Have Negative Impacts on Molecular Date Estimates.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Combining Molecular, Macroevolutionary, and Macroecological Perspectives on the Generation of Diversity.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2024Review
- Mitochondrial Genomic Evidence of Selective Constraints in Small-Bodied Terrestrial Cetartiodactyla.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Comparative mitogenomic analysis of subterranean and surface amphipods (Crustacea, Amphipoda) with special reference to the family Crangonyctidae.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Article
- Mitogenomic evolutionary rates in bilateria are influenced by parasitic lifestyle and locomotory capacity.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Disentangling Positive Selection from Relaxed Selection in Animal Mitochondrial Genomes.The American naturalist · 2023Article
- Investigating the reliability of molecular estimates of evolutionary time when substitution rates and speciation rates vary.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Range-wide phylogeography of the flightless steppe beetle Lethrus apterus (Geotrupidae) reveals recent arrival to the Pontic Steppes from the west.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Does effective population size affect rates of molecular evolution: Mitochondrial data for host/parasite species pairs in bees suggests not.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Mitonuclear Coevolution, but not Nuclear Compensation, Drives Evolution of OXPHOS Complexes in Bivalves.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Flightlessness in insects enhances diversification and determines assemblage structure across whole communities.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Wind plays a major but not exclusive role in the prevalence of insect flight loss on remote islands.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Convergent patterns of evolution of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) genes in electric fishes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Article
- Mitogenome evolution in ladybirds: Potential association with dietary adaptation.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The loss of flight ability has occurred thousands of times independently during insect evolution. Flight loss may be linked to higher molecular evolutionary rates because of reductions in effective population sizes (Ne) and relaxed selective constraints. Reduced dispersal ability increases population subdivision, may decrease geographical range size and increases (sub)population extinction risk, thus leading to an expected reduction in Ne. Additionally, flight loss in birds has been linked to higher molecular rates of energy-related genes, probably owing to relaxed selective constraints on energy metabolism. We tested for an association between insect flight loss and molecular rates through comparative analysis in 49 phylogenetically independent transitions spanning multiple taxa, including moths, flies, beetles, mayflies, stick insects, stoneflies, scorpionflies and caddisflies, using available nuclear and mitochondrial protein-coding DNA sequences. We estimated the rate of molecular evolution of flightless (FL) and related flight-capable lineages by ratios of non-synonymous-to-synonymous substitutions (dN/dS) and overall substitution rates (OSRs). Across multiple instances of flight loss, we show a significant pattern of higher dN/dS ratios and OSRs in FL lineages in mitochondrial but not nuclear genes. These patterns may be explained by relaxed selective constraints in FL ectotherms relating to energy metabolism, possibly in combination with reduced Ne.
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