Evolutionary radiation of wet forest dung beetles

I have been running a research project on evolutionary radiation of wet forest dung beetles in Madagascar since 2002. This project reached the first major goal in 2009, involving reconstruction of molecular phylogenies for most species, description of species’ geographical ranges and knowledge of species’ life histories and ecologies. In the coming years, research will be focused on one of the four main radiations, involving the genera Nanos and Apotolamprus with 61 described species, which colonized Madagascar 24-15 MY. We have recently sequenced the transcriptome of one Nanos species. The aims of the current and planned research include the reconstruction of a phylogeny based on many genes, comparative genomic analyses of genes involved in thermal adaptation, and phylogeographic analyses of selected species that are involved in strong interspecific interactions, including hybridization. The empirical research is closely related to modeling of radiations.