Many groups of terrestrial plants and animals display a disjunct distribution pattern in the Paleotropics, being found almost exclusively in tropical Africa and Asia. The origin of such a pattern may be manifold, particularly for older lineages where plate tectonics potentially played an important role. Several potential colonisation routes may have been involved in dispersal events between the Afrotropics and tropical Asia, n...

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), that is, the increase in species richness from the poles to the equator, is one of the oldest known ecological patterns. Its inverse (iLDG), where species richness increases toward higher latitudes, is less common but has recently attracted growing scientific interest. Here, we investigate the causes for iLDG in a highly diversified group: the slant‐faced grasshoppers (Gomphocerinae)....

Aim Although New Caledonia (NC) is now considered an oceanic island that emerged ca. 60 Ma, a few terrestrial clades are significantly older, raising the question of the origin of these groups. Classically, old lineages on more recent islands are hypothesized to originate through a process of hopping on now‐vanished islands (i.e., island‐hopping hypothesis) or other territories. We aim to test this hypothesis by studying a gro...

Aim Multiple biogeographical scenarios involving vicariance and different colonization routes can explain disjunct species distributions in the Southern Hemisphere. Here, we tested several alternative hypotheses in Eneopterinae crickets, a diverse subfamily presenting a disjunct worldwide distribution. We inferred a dated phylogeny of Eneopterinae and reconstructed their biogeographical history to unravel the origin of their p...

Nattier, R., Robillard, T., Amedegnato, C., Couloux, A., Cruaud, C. & Desutter‐Grandcolas, L. (2011) Evolution of acoustic communication in the Gomphocerinae (Orthoptera: Caelifera: Acrididae). — Zoologica Scripta, 40 , 479–497. We used a phylogenetic analysis to study the communication behaviour in the Gomphocerinae (Insecta, Orthoptera, Acrididae), which are characterised by their stridulatory apparatus and a diversified aco...

Acoustic signalling is the most important communication modality for crickets. While it has been studied intensively, few authors have analysed the evolution of cricket acoustic signals within a macroevolutionary perspective, still fewer with respect to its phylogenetic aspects. This may be due in part to the lack of acoustic and phylogenetic data; there are also difficulties involved in applying phylogenetic methods to acoust...