The periodical cicada four-year acceleration hypothesis revisited and the polyphyletic nature of Brood V, including an updated crowd-source enhanced map (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Magicicada)

PeerJ. 2018 Jul 31:6:e5282. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5282. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The periodical cicadas of North America (Magicicada spp.) are well-known for their long life cycles of 13 and 17 years and their mass synchronized emergences. Although periodical cicada life cycles are relatively strict, the biogeographic patterns of periodical cicada broods, or year-classes, indicate that they must undergo some degree of life cycle switching. We present a new map of periodical cicada Brood V, which emerged in 2016, and demonstrate that it consists of at least four distinct parts that span an area in the United States stretching from Ohio to Long Island. We discuss mtDNA haplotype variation in this brood in relation to other periodical cicada broods, noting that different parts of this brood appear to have different origins. We use this information to refine a hypothesis for the formation of periodical cicada broods by 1- and 4-year life cycle jumps.

Keywords: Biogeography; Climate; Crowdsourcing; Distribution; Mapping; Periodical Cicada; mtDNA.

Grants and funding

The National Geographic CRE-sponsored project “Making Modern Maps of Magicicada Emergences” provided funding for this project. This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. NSF DEB 04-22386, DEB-09-55849, DEB 16-55891 to Chris Simon and J. Cooley (and others) and grants from the University of Connecticut, Vice President’s Research Excellence Program. This study was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP22255004, JP22370010, JP26257405, and JP15H04420 to Jin Yoshimura. We also received funding from Shizuoka University. There was no additional external funding received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.