Why did insects win?
It basically starts from this blog post. The question is: why are Insecta the most diverse group of arthropods, if not of living beings, on Earth's land, while Arachnida and other arthropod groups aren't?
Here I collect some material for further posts on the subject.
Evolution of Arthropoda
- Marine evolution of Arachnida: "The oldest known scorpions lived around 430 million years ago in the Silurian period, on the bottom of shallow tropical seas.[15] These first scorpions had gills instead of the present forms' book lungs." ( Scorpion )
- Recent evidence for Pancrustacea hypothesis based on nuclear genes phylogenies: Regier et al. 2010
- Rota-Stabelli et al. 2010, mitochondrial genomes from several arthropoda, further Pancrustacea evidence.
Evolution of insect flight
Wings as primitive tracheal gills: Evolution_of_insects#Origin_of_insect_flight
Evolution of metamorphosis
- "The evolution of complete metamorphosis in insects is a key innovation that has led to the successful diversification of holometabolous insects," Suzuki et al. (molecular biology of pupa)