Abstract
Oribatid mites are an ancient group that already roamed terrestrial ecosystems in the early and middle Devonian. The superfamily of Ameronothroidea, a supposedly monophyletic lineage, represents the only group of oribatid mites that has successfully invaded the marine coastal environment. By using mitogenome data and nucleic ribosomal RNA genes (18S, 5.8S, 28S), we show that Ameronothroidea are a paraphyletic assemblage and that the land-to-sea transition happened three times independently. Common ancestors of the tropical Fortuyniidae and Selenoribatidae were the first to colonize the coasts and molecular calibration of our phylogeny dates this event to a period in the Triassic and Jurassic era (225-146 mya), whereas present-day distribution indicates that this event might have happened early in this period during the Triassic, when the supercontinent Pangaea still existed. The cold temperate northern hemispheric Ameronothridae colonized the marine littoral later in the late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous and had an ancient distribution on Laurasian coasts. The third and final land-to-sea transition happened in the same geological period, but approx. 30 my later when ancestors of Podacaridae invaded coastal marine environments of the Gondwanan landmasses.