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Updated: Feb 1, 2026

A CO2 Concentration Gradient Facility for Testing CO2 Enrichment and Soil Effects on Grassland Ecosystem Function
Published on: November 21, 2015
Opposite macroevolutionary responses to environmental changes in grasses and insects during the Neogene grassland
Gael J Kergoat1, Fabien L Condamine2, Emmanuel F A Toussaint3
1CBGP, INRA, CIRAD, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro, University of Montpellier, 755 Avenue du campus Agropolis, 34988, Montferrier-sur-Lez, France. gael.kergoat@inra.fr.
Abstract:
The rise of Neogene C4 grasslands is one of the most drastic changes recently experienced by the biosphere. A central - and widely debated - hypothesis posits that Neogene grasslands acted as a major adaptive zone for herbivore lineages. We test this hypothesis with a novel model system, the Sesamiina stemborer moths and their associated host-grasses. Using a comparative phylogenetic framework integrating paleoenvironmental proxies we recover a negative correlation between the evolutionary trajectories of insects and plants. Our results show that paleoenvironmental changes generated opposing macroevolutionary dynamics in this insect-plant system and call into question the role of grasslands as a universal adaptive cradle. This study illustrates the importance of implementing environmental proxies in diversification analyses to disentangle the relative impacts of biotic and abiotic drivers of macroevolutionary dynamics.
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