Asian forest scorpions (Scorpionidae Latreille, 1802: Heterometrinae Simon, 1879) are distributed across South and Southeast Asia. All are fossorial, constructing burrows under stones or in open ground, in habitats differing in precipitation and vegetation cover, from rainforests and tropical deciduous forests to savanna and scrubland. The systematics of these scorpions has long been confused due to bad taxonomy and the absence of a phylogenetic framework. Although the monophyly of the group was previously confirmed as part of broader phylogenetic analyses based on exemplar species, the only quantitative analysis of species‐level variation to date was based on overall similarity. This contribution presents the first species‐level phylogenetic analysis of Asian Scorpionidae, based on 186 morphological characters and 4188 aligned base‐pairs of DNA sequence data from two nuclear and three mitochondrial loci for 132 terminals including all 41 ingroup species and four outgroup species. Simultaneous analyses of the morphological and molecular datasets with parsimony, Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference provided the framework for a revised classification presented elsewhere. In order to understand how adaptation following dispersal into new habitats has driven the morphological diversification of Asian forest scorpions, species were scored for 10 characters concerning morphology and burrow architecture, which contributed to an ensemble index of adaptation to habitat aridity. Species were classified into three ecomorphotypes based on the index, and ancestral state reconstruction of ecomorphotypes performed on the phylogeny. A pattern was recovered in which lineages and species occurring in different habitats on a continuum from wet (evergreen forest) to dry (savanna, scrubland) exhibited characters presumed to be adaptive and hence responsible for driving scorpion diversification.

中文翻译：

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钻入森林：亚洲森林蝎子（蝎子科：Heterometrinae）的系统发育和生态形态的进化

亚洲森林蝎子 (Scorpionidae Latreille, 1802: Heterometrinae Simon, 1879) 分布于南亚和东南亚。所有这些都是埋藏式的，在石头下或开阔地中建造洞穴，在降水和植被覆盖不同的栖息地，从热带雨林和热带落叶林到稀树草原和灌木丛。由于分类不良和缺乏系统发育框架，这些蝎子的系统学长期以来一直被混淆。尽管该组的单一系先前已被确认为基于示例物种的更广泛系统发育分析的一部分，但迄今为止对物种水平变异的唯一定量分析是基于整体相似性。这项贡献提出了亚洲蝎子科的第一个物种级系统发育分析，基于 186 个形态特征和 4188 个比对碱基对的 DNA 序列数据，来自 132 个末端的两个核和三个线粒体基因座，包括所有 41 个内群物种和四个外群物种。用简约、最大似然和贝叶斯推理同时分析形态和分子数据集为其他地方提出的修订分类提供了框架。为了了解分散到新栖息地后的适应如何推动亚洲森林蝎子的形态多样化，对物种的形态和洞穴结构的 10 个特征进行评分，这有助于形成适应栖息地干旱的综合指数。根据该指数将物种分为三种生态形态类型，以及对系统发育进行的生态形态类型的祖先状态重建。恢复了一种模式，其中在从潮湿（常绿森林）到干燥（稀树草原，灌木丛）的连续统一体中出现在不同栖息地的谱系和物种表现出被认为具有适应性的特征，因此是推动蝎子多样化的原因。