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Understanding why some groups of organisms are more diverse than others is a central goal in macroevolution. Evolvability, or the intrinsic capacity of lineages for evolutionary change, is thought to influence disparities in species diversity across taxa. Over macroevolutionary time scales, clades that exhibit high evolvability are expected to have higher speciation rates. Cone snails (family: Conidae, $>$900 spp.) provide a unique opportunity to test this prediction because their toxin genes can be used to characterize differences in evolvability between clades. Cone snails are carnivorous, use prey-specific venom (conotoxins) to capture prey, and the genes that encode venom are known and diversify through gene duplication. Theory predicts that higher gene diversity confers a greater potential to generate novel phenotypes for specialization and adaptation. Therefore, if conotoxin gene diversity gives rise to varying levels of evolvability, conotoxin gene diversity should be coupled with macroevolutionary speciation rates. We applied exon capture techniques to recover phylogenetic markers and conotoxin loci across 314 species, the largest venom discovery effort in a single study. We paired a reconstructed timetree using 12 fossil calibrations with species-specific estimates of conotoxin gene diversity and used trait-dependent diversification methods to test the impact of evolvability on diversification patterns. Surprisingly, we did not detect any signal for the relationship between conotoxin gene diversity and speciation rates, suggesting that venom evolution may not be the rate-limiting factor controlling diversification dynamics in Conidae. Comparative analyses showed some signal for the impact of diet and larval dispersal strategy on diversification patterns, though detection of a signal depended on the dataset and the method. If our results remain true with increased taxonomic sampling in future studies, they suggest that the rapid evolution of conid venom may cause other factors to become more critical to diversification, such as ecological opportunity or traits that promote isolation among lineages.

The high degree of endemism on Sulawesi has previously been suggested to have vicariant origins, dating back to 40 Ma. Recent studies, however, suggest that much of Sulawesis fauna assembled over the last 15 Myr. Here, we test the hypothesis that more recent uplift of previously submerged portions of land on Sulawesi promoted diversification and that much of its faunal assemblage is much younger than the island itself. To do so, we combined palaeogeographical reconstructions with genetic and morphometric datasets derived from Sulawesis three largest mammals: the babirusa, anoa and Sulawesi warty pig. Our results indicate that although these species most likely colonized the area that is now Sulawesi at different times (14 Ma to 2-3 Ma), they experienced an almost synchronous expansion from the central part of the island. Geological reconstructions indicate that this area was above sea level for most of the last 4 Myr, unlike most parts of the island. We conclude that emergence of land on Sulawesi (approx. 1-2 Myr) may have allowed species to expand synchronously. Altogether, our results indicate that the establishment of the highly endemic faunal assemblage on Sulawesi was driven by geological events over the last few million years.

Four new species of freshwater crab are described from material collected in northern and southwestern Cameroon and assigned to Sudanonautes Bott, 1955. Sudanonautes cameroonensis sp. n., S. eyimba sp. n., S. ngaoundere sp. n. and S. nkam sp. n., are distinguished by characters of the carapace, thoracic sternum, chelipeds, mandibles, adult male gonopods, and in addition by genetic analyses using the mitochondrial CO1 and 16S rRNA genes. Diagnoses, illustrations, and a phylogenetic tree based on mtDNA sequences are provided, as well as a discussion of the threats and conservation of all species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article about freshwater shrimps in Mindoro Island, the Philippines. The correction addresses missing information in a supplementary table and provides the corrected version. The original publication has been updated accordingly. The document also provides a list of different species of Caridina shrimp found in Oriental Mindoro, Philippines, including their names, locations, collection dates, and collectors' names. It is a valuable resource for researchers studying the biodiversity of freshwater shrimp in the Philippines. Additionally, the document mentions other locations in Asia where different species of freshwater shrimps have been found and includes information about their collection. Corrections and additional references have been made to the original publication, but they do not affect the scientific conclusions. [Extracted from the article]

Four new Liberonautes species of freshwater crabs are described from material collected during an expedition to the rainforests of Sierra Leone, West Africa. Liberonautes kasonko sp. nov., L. njala sp. nov., L. schubarti sp. nov. and L. sugarloaf sp. nov. are recognized based on a combination of morphological characters including the carapace, adult male chelipeds, and first gonopods, and on genetic evidence involving analyses of partial segments of the mitochondrial genes of COI, 16S rRNA and 12S rRNA. Diagnoses, illustrations, and a tree of phylogenetic relationships based on mtDNA sequences, as well as a map showing the distributions of the new species are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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