Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis Of Acridoidea From COI And Cyt B Gene Sequences

The superfamily Acridoidea is important because it contains devastating economic pests as well as many unusual and poorly understood insects. Although phylogeny of the group has been investigated from a variety of perspectives and at different taxonomic levels, phylogenetic relationships within Acridoidea remain unresolved, for example, the lack of general consensus on the relationships between families. The Acridoidea is generally divided into 8 families by Chinese scholars, Pamphagidae, Chrotogonidae, Pyrgomorphidae, Catantopidae, Acrididae, Oedipodidae, Arcypteridae, Gomphoceridae. The taxonomic system is very different from the one used widespreadly by foreign scholars. The taxonomic status and the phylogentic relationships among the five families Catantopidae, Acrididae, Oedipodidae, Arcypteridae, Gomphoceridae is the main controversy. In order to provide enough proofs for improving the taxonomic system, it is necessary to study the phylogeny of five families of Acridoidea based on molecular markers.In the first chapter, using fragments of COI gene, we studied the phylogenetic relationships among species of five familes of Acridoidea with MP and Bayesian methods. The results were as follows: (1) Species of Acrididae, Gomphoceridae and all the Arcypterinae species of Arcypteridae are monophyletic. Species of Oedipodidae are supported as a monophyleticgroup, Ceracrinae species of Arcypteridae cluter together to make a monophyletic group. Epistaurus aberrans (Coptacrinae) and Xenocatantops humilis (Catantopinae) is a phylogenetic group, Stenocatantops splendens (Catantopinae) and Hieroglyphus banian (Hieroglyphinae) is also a phylogenetic group. (2) The phylogenetic trees indicate that the four families including Catantopidae, Arcypteridae, Gomphoceridae and Acrididae, are not monophyletic. The relationships among the five families are very close, so we support the view that these five families can be combined into one family Acrididae. (3) It is suggested that Arcypterinae, Gomphoceridae and Chrysochraontinae be combined into Gomphocerinae of the family Acrididae.