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Group of Invertebrate Zoology
SCIENTIFIC OVERVIEW
RESEARCH SUMMARY
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Prof. Dr. LI, Shuqiang
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SCIENTIFIC OVERVIEW
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Research in the laboratory of Invertebrate Zoology seeks to understand how geological events (e.g. Tethyan changes and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau uplifting) influence the diversification of species and phenotypes and how, in turn, animals adapt to ecological changes. We address these questions using a combination of fieldwork, morphological taxonomy, molecular systematics, and phylogenomics. Our research uses spiders and amphipods as representative of terrestrial and water-living (freshwater and salinewater) animals, respectively.

The laboratory of Invertebrate Zoology was founded by Prof. Jiarui Shen at 1928 (see Crustaceana 70(4): 497–503). He led the laboratory until 1975. Several students of Prof. Shen are Aacademicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences, including Profs Ruiyu Liu and Daxiang Song. The laboratory was led by Prof. Daxiang Song between 1975 and 1995. Dr Shuqiang Li has been the Principal Investigator of the laboratory for the past 16 years. Members of his laboratory have published 119 scientific papers during 2004–2009 alone, including 85 papers published in journals such as Systematic Biology and other SCI journals. About 100 scientific papers appeared between 2010 and 2014, including 65 in journals such as PNAS and other SCI journals. Our scientific activities in the last 4 years are as follows:

1 Morphological taxonomy

Eight new genera 410 new species of spiders and amphipods were described in the past 4 years. This is almost 0.3% of the known Chinese biota. Further, we revised 512 known species, creating 28 new synonymies and 41 new combinations. The diversity of Chinese spiders increased from 56 families and 2361 species in 1999 to 68 families and 4385 species in 2014. The diversity of Chinese freshwater amphipod species increased from 18 species in 1999 to 110 species 2014.

2 Molecualr systematics

Our research focuses on the evolutionary footprints of spiders and amphipods. We used Holarctic aquatic amphipods of the genus Gammarus to test the hypothesis that ecological opportunities facilitate speciation. We discovered that Gammarus originated from the Tethyan region and has a saline ancestry that dates to the Paleocene. Later it colonized freshwater habitats in the Middle Eocene (PNAS, 2011, 108(35): 14533–14538). Another study on the evolutionary history of Gammaridae used a comprehensive set of 198 species. The phylogeny revealed an origin from the Tethyan region in the Cretaceous. The ancestor split into three morphologically and geographically distinct lineages by the end of the Paleocene. Diversification analysis combined with paleogeological evidence suggested that the Tethyan changes induced by sea-level fluctuation and tectonic uplift triggered different diversification modes and range expansions for the three lineages (Cladistics, 2014, (30): 352–365). Our molecular phylogenetic analysis of Platorchestia amphipods revealed that continental terrestrial populations (Platorchestia japonica) form a monophyletic group that is the sister group to the Northwest Pacific coastal species Platorchestia pacifica. We propose a marine incursion scenario occurring in East Asia during the Miocene epoch, 10–17 Ma. This is the first solid case documenting the impact of marine incursion on extant biodiversity in continental East Asia (Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Biological Sciences, 2013, 280: 20122892). Our study on the evolution and origin of cave organisms is based on Nesticella cave spiders. We concluded that cave Nesticella is comprised of an ancient group of spiders, but with young troglobite lineages that invaded caves only recently (BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2013, 13:183). We also investigated cryptic diversity in the cave species complex Telema cucurbitina, which has a narrow niche but widespread distribution among multiple caves. Our species delimitation methods identified each cave-population as a separate species. We propose that each cave population within this species complex constituted an independently evolving lineage. Our work highlights the need for conservation strategies to protect this largely neglected diversity of cave organisms (Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2014, 79: 353–358).

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