The Evolutionary Role of Flight in Calosoma Caterpillar Hunter Beetles: Insights from Genomics and Museomics

Diplôme Thèse The Evolutionary Role of Flight in Calosoma Caterpillar Hunter Beetles: Insights from Genomics and Museomics eng 2026-03 2026-03-03 author Cardenas Cody Raul 0000-0002-8402-6069 980477 director Toussaint Emmanuel director Zdobnov Evgeny 0000-0002-5178-1498 636914 Département de médecine génétique et développement (GEDEV) 346 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:194522 urn:nbn:ch:unige-1945227 Sc. Vie 386 Flight is a key evolutionary innovation in insects that has shaped their extraordinary diversity on Earth. Paradoxically, secondary flight loss is widespread across the insect tree of life and has been documented in nearly all insect orders. Although the consequences of flightlessness have been explored under a wide range of hypotheses, the possibility of flight reacquisition has been marginalized and deemed unlikely. This thesis investigates the interplay between wing morphology, flightlessness, and diversification processes in the ground beetle genus Calosoma Weber, 1801 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Carabinae). This cosmopolitan lineage contains both flight-capable and flightless species within an otherwise flightless subfamily. To date, the lack of a robust and comprehensive phylogeny has hindered rigorous evaluation of wing evolution in Calosoma. To address this knowledge gap, I adopt an integrative genomic-scale approach that combines population genomics, phylogenomics, and macroevolutionary analyses, leveraging the untapped potential of natural history museum collections. I develop a new methodological pipeline to integrate diverse genomic datasets and improve phylogenetic inference in the beetle suborder Adephaga, thereby refining the phylogenetic placement and temporal origin of Carabinae. At the microevolutionary scale, I conduct population genomic analyses of flightless Calosoma lineages, which highlight contrasting evolutionary trajectories shaped by orogenies and climate change. At the macroevolutionary scale, I infer a robust and comprehensively sampled phylogenomic timetree of Calosoma, identifying clades necessitating parallel taxonomic revisions. Estimates of divergence times and ancestral ranges place the origin of Calosoma in the Holarctic region during the late Eocene, followed by a dynamic dispersal-driven colonization of tropical latitudes in the Oligocene and Miocene. Reconstructions of ancestral wing morphology support a fully winged ancestral condition in Calosoma followed by repeated wing reduction events, and several potential instances of secondary fully developed wing reacquisition. Relying on comparative analyses, I show that while flight capability is closely associated with the biogeographical history of Calosoma beetles, it does not correlate with diversification rates. In this thesis, I establish Calosoma as an excellent model system to study wing morphology evolution while also proposing a multi-scale evolutionary scenario explaining its current diversity. Adephaga Carabidae Flightlessness HyRAD Wing evolution Population genomics Phylogenomics Phylogeography Sky islands Ultraconserved elements Dewey 500 Dewey 576.5 Swiss National Science Foundation Evolution and genomic architecture of flight loss in Calosoma beetles 200491 CH German Research Council SCHM 3005/2-1 2 Faculté des sciences 1 135 Département de médecine génétique et développement 21D false 493 Génomique Evolutionnaire Computationnelle 830 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18314380 0dbdaa65-24b7-43aa-b1e1-c474bd1e0f10 Thesis Public Cardenas26_Thesis_final.pdf 111130743 application/pdf CC BY-4.0 Restricted 2028-03-31 1256d9db04c9e3b231315a840d665fdd36441a19d929d777f50938ced7905c63 ad6d9b1e-f619-4d25-8676-24bdd11e3aad Imprimatur Public file.pdf 207306 application/pdf da4d8b9f9fa4e48689d07d85142c596e943011119031112128c643c69c5e0f6c Vignette Public Calosoma_ML.png 239457 image/png embargoedAccess Faculté des sciences Faculté de médecine / Section de médecine fondamentale / Département de médecine génétique et développement

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