Establishment of the mayfly Cloeon dipterum as a new model system to investigate insect evolution

• Published in: EvoDevo Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 6
• Main Authors: Almudi, Isabel, Martín-Blanco, Carlos A, García-Fernandez, Isabel M, López-Catalina, Adrián, Davie, Kristofer, Aerts, Stein, Casares, Fernando
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 02-04-2019; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Analysis; Aquatic ecosystems; Cloeon dipterum; Continuous culture; Developmental biology; Eggs; Embryogenesis; Ephemeroptera; Evolution; Evolution (Biology); Evolutionary and developmental biology; Evolutionary biology; Gene expression; Genomes; Insect evolution; Insects; Investigations; Laboratories; Life history; Mayflies; Metabolism; Paleoptera; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Review; Regeneration; Embryogenesis; Evolutionary and developmental biology; Ephemeroptera; Insect evolution; Paleoptera; Mayflies; Cloeon dipterum
• ISSN: 2041-9139; 2041-9139
• DOI: 10.1186/s13227-019-0120-y

The great capability of insects to adapt to new environments promoted their extraordinary diversification, resulting in the group of Metazoa with the largest number of species distributed worldwide. To understand this enormous diversity, it is essential to investigate lineages that would allow the reconstruction of the early events in the evolution of insects. However, research on insect ecology, physiology, development and evolution has mostly focused on few well-established model species. The key phylogenetic position of mayflies within Paleoptera as the sister group of the rest of winged insects and life history traits of mayflies make them an essential order to understand insect evolution. Here, we describe the establishment of a continuous culture system of the mayfly
and a series of experimental protocols and omics resources that allow the study of its development and its great regenerative capability. Thus, the establishment of
as an experimental platform paves the way to understand genomic and morphogenetic events that occurred at the origin of winged insects.