Abstract
As phytophagous insects, weevils (Coleoptera, Curculionoidea) are mostly known for their antagonistic relationships with plants. Yet, examples of mutualistic interactions between weevils and plants are being revealed by a growing number of publications. Recent research showed that transitions from antagonism to mutualism emerged at least a dozen times in the evolutionary history of weevils in the form of brood-site pollination. Each of these evolutionary events makes up an ideal repeated pattern to study the emergence of mutualistic interactions. In this context, a robust phylogenetic background for weevils is necessary. Thanksfully, the insect tree of life is being continueslouy pushed forward thanks to the widespread use of ultraconserved elements for phylogenomic analyses. However, despite previous efforts, the evolutionary history of weevils, has yet to be confidently resolved due to insufficient phylogenetic signal in currently available probe sets. To solve this issue, we designed a new set of probes specific to Curculionoidea with a novel method based on genomes alignment. Genetic markers obtained with this method offer better phylogenetic support at wide and shallow taxonomic levels than single reference based methods commonly used today. Using this new set of UCE, we took advantage of museum specimens to reconstruct the first phylogenetic tree of one major and broadly understudied group of brood-site pollinating weevils: the Ochyromerini tribe. Combined with what we know of their ecological interactions, these results shed light on the systematics of the tribe and the pattern of emergence of mutualism at the species scale. Ongoing research will focus on many other aspects of their evolutionary history, such as their biogeography, diversification rates and host plant associations dynamics. While we are planning to do the same with other pollinating weevil lineages, we hope that sharing this new set of Curculionoidea baits along with the methods utilized to generate and analyse them will allow to unveil the deeper radiation of the most diverse group of insects known so far.