The Sarcophagidae (flesh flies) comprise a large and widely distributed radiation within the Calyptratae (Diptera). Larval feeding habits are ecologically diverse and include sarcosaprophagy, coprophagy, herbivory, invertebrate and vertebrate predation, and kleptoparasitism. To elucidate the geographic origin and evolution of flesh fly life-history, we inferred a backbone phylogeny based on transcriptomic data from 26 sarcophagid species covering all three subfamilies plus 15 outgroups. The phylogeny was inferred using maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood methods based on a series of supermatrices, one set with overall information content improved by MARE (2290 loci), one set with 100% gene coverage for all included species (587 loci), and the last set including mitochondrial and nuclear genes (589 loci) and additional taxa. In order to obtain a more detailed hypothesis, we utilized the supertree approach to combine results from the present study with previously published hypotheses. This resulted supertree covers 84 of the one hundred currently recognized sarcophagid genera and formed the basis for the ancestral state reconstructions. The monophyletic Sarcophagidae is well-supported as sister to {Mystacinobiidae + Oestridae}, and relationships at the subfamily level are inferred as {Sarcophaginae, (Paramacronychiinae + Miltogramminae)}. The Sarcophagidae and each subfamily originated in the Americas, with Sarcophaginae diversifying mainly in the Neotropics, whereas the major radiation of both Miltogramminae and Paramacronychiinae occurred in the Palaearctic. Sarcosaprophagy is reconstructed as the ancestral larval feeding habit of the family Sarcophagidae and each subfamily. The ancestral sarcophagid larva probably utilized dead invertebrates as food, and the food spectrum expanded together with the diversification of breeding strategies. Particularly, kleptoparasitism in Miltogramminae is derived from sarcosaprophagy and may be seen as having derived from the breeding biology of ‘lower’ miltogrammines, the larvae of which feed on buried vertebrate carrion.

中文翻译：

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肉蝇进化的系统转录组学框架（双翅目，Calyptratae，石棺科）

Sarcophagidae（肉蝇）在Calyptratae（双翅目）内包含大量且广泛分布的辐射。幼虫的摄食习性在生态上是多样的，包括食肉食、食粪食、食草食、无脊椎动物和脊椎动物捕食以及盗窃寄生。为了阐明果蝇生活史的地理起源和进化，我们根据涵盖所有三个亚科和 15 个外群的 26 种石棺物种的转录组数据推断了骨干系统发育。系统发育是使用基于一系列超矩阵的最大简约法和最大似然法推断的，其中一组具有通过 MARE 改进的整体信息内容（2290 个基因座），一组具有所有包括物种的 100% 基因覆盖（587 个基因座），以及最后一组包括线粒体和核基因（589 个基因座）和其他分类群。为了获得更详细的假设，我们利用超树方法将本研究的结果与先前发表的假设相结合。这导致超级树覆盖了目前公认的 100 个石棺属中的 84 个，并形成了祖先状态重建的基础。单系石棺科作为{Mystacinobiidae + Oestridae}的姐妹得到了很好的支持，并且亚科水平的关系被推断为{Sarcophaginae，（Paramacronychiinae + Miltogramminae）}。石棺科及其各亚科起源于美洲，石棺亚科主要分布在新热带地区，而米虫亚科和副长爪螨亚科的主要辐射分布在古北冰洋。Sarcosaprophagy被重建为Sarcophagidae科和每个亚科的祖先幼虫摄食习惯。祖先的石棺幼虫可能以死去的无脊椎动物为食，食物谱随着繁殖策略的多样化而扩大。特别是，Miltogramminae 中的盗虫寄生源自肉食性动物，并且可能被视为源自“低级”miltogrammines 的繁殖生物学，其幼虫以埋藏的脊椎动物腐肉为食。