Beetles are one of the largest and most diverse groups of animals in the world. Conversion of forewings into hardened shields is perceived as a key adaptation that has greatly supported the evolutionary success of this taxa. Beetle elytra play an essential role: they minimize the influence of unfavorable external factors and protect insects against predators. Therefore, it is particularly interesting why some beetles have reduced their shields. This rare phenomenon is called brachelytry and its evolution and implications remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we focused on rare group of brachelytrous beetles with exposed hind wings. We have investigated whether the elytra loss in different beetle taxa is accompanied with the hind wing shape modification, and whether these changes are similar among unrelated beetle taxa. We found that hind wings shape differ markedly between related brachelytrous and macroelytrous beetles. Moreover, we revealed that modifications of hind wings have followed similar patterns and resulted in homoplasy in this trait among some unrelated groups of wing-exposed brachelytrous beetles. Our results suggest that elytra reduction may affect the evolution of beetle hind wings.

中文翻译：

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鞘翅减少可能会影响甲虫后翅的进化


甲虫是世界上最大、最多样化的动物类群之一。将前翅转变为硬化盾被认为是一种关键的适应，极大地支持了该类群的进化成功。甲虫鞘翅起着至关重要的作用：它们最大限度地减少不利外部因素的影响并保护昆虫免受捕食者的侵害。因此，为什么有些甲虫会减少护盾，就显得特别有趣了。这种罕见的现象被称为短距离飞行，其演变和影响在很大程度上仍未被探索。在本文中，我们关注的是后翅外露的罕见短甲虫群体。我们研究了不同甲虫类群中的鞘翅损失是否伴随着后翅形状的改变，以及这些变化在不相关的甲虫类群中是否相似。我们发现相关的短鞘甲虫和大鞘甲虫的后翅形状明显不同。此外，我们发现后翅的修饰遵循相似的模式，并导致一些不相关的暴露翅膀的短甲虫群体中这一性状的同质性。我们的结果表明，鞘翅的减少可能会影响甲虫后翅的进化。