2025/12/22 by Yehao Wang, Shiyu Du, M. I. C. H. A. ELS. ENGEL +1 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Orthoptera Research and Taxonomy #Spider Taxonomy and Behavior Studies #Subterranean biodiversity and taxonomy
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s42003-025-09324-w
openalex created_date 2025/12/22 · openalex publication_date 2025/12/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Rhaphidophoridae (cave crickets) are a captivating group of wingless crickets that comprises nine extant subfamilies, with a distribution spanning the globe, excluding Antarctica 1 . Due to their limited mobility, each rhaphidophorid subfamily exhibits a high degree of endemism 1 . Elucidating robust phylogenetic relationships among these subfamilies will greatly enhance our understanding of the evolutionary and biogeographic history of this intriguing group. In a recent study by Kim et al. [KIM24] 2 , a Sanger sequencing-based phylogeny of Rhaphidophoridae was presented, encompassing all extant subfamilies. Notably, the enigmatic subfamily Anoplophilinae was included for the first time, alongside Tropidischinae and Gammarotettiginae 2 . Based on their phylogenetic analysis, divergence-time estimation, and deep-time biogeographic reconstruction, two key insights emerged: (1) Anoplophilinae are the sister group to Gammarotettiginae; and (2) Geological events coincide with lineage diversification events and potentially promoted rhaphidophorid divergence, such as the origin of Gammarotettiginae in East Asia and its dispersal to western North America via the Beringia land bridge, and the separation of Ceuthophilinae from Tropidischiinae in North America influenced by the opening of the Western Interior Seaway 2 . However, upon reanalyzing the original datasets from KIM24 using both maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods, we find that the reproducibility of a consistent topology is not guaranteed based on repeated experiments, due to weak phylogenetic signals. We also show that the tree topology may change significantly based on a better-fitting site-heterogeneous model. Consequently, the phylogenetic relationships within Rhaphidophoridae proposed by KIM24 are not robust, and the downstream timetree and biogeographic reconstruction are challenged by the topological uncertainty.