The genus Desmodesmus (Chodat) S.S. An, T. Friedl & E. Hegewald is ubiquitous in freshwater ecosystems, such as rivers, ponds, and wetlands. The actual species diversity and distribution of the genus is unknown because of morphological plasticity affected by habitats. Currently, 38 Desmodesmus species have been reported in Korea most of which transferred from the genus Scenedesmus recently, however, no phylogenetic relationships have been studied yet. Despite the challenges in analyzing relationships among Desmodesmus species through the morphology, ecology, and original description, this study focused on examining species-level relationships using the FBCC culture strains isolated from Korea. A total of 299 sequences (66 of 18S rRNA, 47 of atpB, 67 of petA, 52 of rbcL, and 67 of tufA) were newly determined and used for phylogenetic analysis. Four plastid genes tend to have higher variation than 18S rRNA in the variable sites and P-distance. From the combined phylogeny, the Desmodesmus included six clades such as Clade-1: D. pseudoserratus and D. serratus, Clade-2: D. communis, D. dispar, D. maximus, D. pannonicus, unidentified Desmodesmus sp., Clade-3: D. bicaudatus and D. intermedius, Clade-4: D. microspina, D. multivariablis, D. pleiomorphus, D. subspicatus, Clade-5: D. abundans, D. kissii, and D. spinosus, and Clade-6: D. armatus, D. armatus var. longispina, D. opoliensis, unidentified Desmodesmus spp. The new sequence data from FBCC strains will be used to identify species and study the molecular ecology of scenedesmacean green algae in freshwater ecosystems. The phylogenetic information from this study will expand our understanding of Desmodesmus species diversity in Korea.

Correlated evolution of biology and morphology of related organs of insects is an intriguing yet poorly understood topic. Gigantic member of phytophagan, the subfamily Cerambycinae provide us a unique opportunity to understand the topic because they have wide range of host plants, oviposition strategies and various forms of ovipositors. The evolutionary pathway of these traits is totally unknown because no robust internal phylogeny has been studied. Here we construct a multilocus phylogeny of Cerambycinae (134 taxa, 9 gene regions, 5211bp) focusing on wide range of oviposition strategies, host plant and ovipositor length. Ancestral state reconstruction analyses show that shortened ovipositor in Cerambycinae evolved at least four times independently; host plant use evolved from stressed hosts to dead and living host, broad leaved trees to conifer and herbaceus plants. Continuous mapping of ancestral state reconstruction shows extremely shortened ovipositor evolved independently at least four times. The correlated evolution test revealed the only correlation is between the ovipositor length and the oviposition strategy. This study unveiled the complex evolutionary history of ovipositor, oviposition strategy, host plant usage and their correlation within Cerambycinae for the first time.

Evolutionary relationship between ovipositior and oviposition behaviour in insect is an intriguing yet poorly understood topic. Gigantic member of phytophagan, the subfamily Cerambycinae provide us a unique opportunity to understand the topic because they have diversified but specialized host plants, oviposition strategies and ovipositors. The evolutionary pathway of these traits is totally unknown because no robust internal phylogeny of Cerambycinae has been studied. Here we construct a multi-locus phylogeny of Cerambycinae (134 taxa, 9 gene regions, 5211bp) focusing on wide range of oviposition site, host plant and ovipositor length. Ancestral state reconstruction analyses show some general trends in cerambycine evolution: i) host plant use evolved from stressed broad leaved trees to conifers and herbaceus plants; ii) oviposition site evolved from bark crevice to wood fissure or plant surface; iii) extremely shortened and elongated ovipositor independently evolved at least four times, respectively. Correlated evolution test show that ovipositor length and oviposition strategy evolved with very strong correlation, while any of other two traits did. This study unveils the complex evolutionary history of ovipositor, oviposition site, host plant use and their correlation within Cerambycinae for the first time.