Due to their aquatic larvae, the evolution of mayflies is intricately tied to environmental changes affecting lakes and rivers. Despite a rich fossil record, little is known about the factors shaping the pattern of diversification of mayflies in deep time. We assemble an unprecedented dataset encompassing all fossil occurrences of mayflies and perform a Bayesian analysis to identify periods of increased origination or extinction. We provide strong evidence for a major extinction of mayflies in the mid-Cretaceous. This extinction and subsequent faunal turnover were probably connected with the rise of angiosperms. Their dominance caused increased nutrient input and changed the chemistry of the freshwater environments, a trend detrimental mainly to lacustrine insects. Mayflies underwent a habitat shift from hypotrophic lakes to running waters, where most of their diversity has been concentrated from the Late Cretaceous to the present.

Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Entomology Branišovská 31 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology University of Łodź Banacha 12 16 90237 Łodź Poland

Department of Zoology Faculty of Science Charles University Viničná 7 128 00 Prague 2 Czech Republic

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