Analysis Of Phylogenetic Relationships And A Lucid Key Of Genera Of Chinese Chalcididae (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea)

Three cladistic methods, Nelsen strict consensus of Hennig86 program, strict consensus and majority rule consensus of Phylip program, were used for analyzing the phylogenetic relationships of Chinese Chalcididae. The analysis of 30 characters for 21 genera, including head, thorax and abdomen, exhibited three consensus trees, and two lineages were roughly revealed in these consensus trees: Chalcidinae (including Chalcidini, Brachymerini and Phasgonophorini) was one lineage; Epitraninae, Dirhininae and Haltichellinae (including Hybothoracini and Haltichellini) belonged to another lineage. The cladistic interpretation was identical with traditionary classification, which the Chalcididae is divided into 4 subfamilies (including 5 tribes). The results of three cladistic methods showed: the consanguinities of different genera in a same tribe were closer, such as Chalcis and Conura, Trigonurella, Megalocolus and Trigonura; the consanguinities of genera between different tribes were farther, such as Chalcis and Brachymeria, Dirhinus and Hallichella; Chalcis, Conura, Brachymeria and Epitranus were the most primitive relatively, Tainaniella and Oxycoryphe were the most evolutional, the consanguinities were the farthest between the former and the latter; the genera with the closest consanguinities were: Tainaniella and Oxycoryphe, Proconura and Nipponochalcidia, Chalcis and Conura, Megalocolus and Trigonura, they were regarded as 4 pairs of sister groups. In addition, the Lucid key to genera of Chinese Chalcididae was built. There were many virtues as compared with traditionary binomial-key. Due to its simple structure and easy operation, users could key to every genus by multi-approaches, such as choosing any character or several characters to begin, clicking the buttons on the tool column. There were many image pictures and notes information in the key, which should make users have more overall understanding to every genus of the Chalcididae; there were different fault-tolerant levels in the system in order to avoid the various mistakes.