| Tachinids are natural enemies of many lepidopteran and beetle pests of forests,agricultural crops, and fruit trees. The Palaearctic tachinid fly, Elodia flavipalpisAldrich, 1933 which is only distributed in northern China and Japan is one of theprimary natural enemies of the leaf-roller moths (Tortricidae), which are pests of thefruit trees of apple, pear, loquat, hawthorn, and others. In order to address the lack ofmt genomic data in this economically relevant group, the complete mitochondrialgenome sequence of E. flavipalpis was sequenced and annotated. The 14,932 bpgenome was broadly typical of Diptera, with 37 genes (13 protein-coding, 22 tRNA,and 2 rRNA) and an A+T-rich region with 92.74% A+T content. However, the startcodon TAC (Tyrosine) for ND1 is the first case to be reported in flies. In addition, theA+T-rich region is only 105 bp long, which is the shortest found so far in flies. All ofthe tRNA genes had the typical clover-leaf secondary structure, except fortRNASer(AGN)which lacked the DHU arm. The composition of the mitochondrialgenome, particularly the gene lengths, is very similar to that of another tachinid fly,Exorista sorbillans. Phylogenetic analyses using maximum likelihood and Bayesianinference support the monophyly of Brachycera, Cyclorrhapha, Calyptratae,Schizophora, Oestroidea and Tachinidae, but not Acalyptratae which is paraphyly. TheCalliphoridae was inferred as a sister group of Oestridae and Tachinidae withinOestroidea. Finally, Bayesian phylogenetic analysis using a fossil-calibratedmolecular clock suggested the Schizophoran rapid radiation took place during the lateCretaceous (~68 mya) and the superfamily Oestroidea and Muscidae as a monophylynested in Acalyptratae and split in the early Eocene (~46 mya) and an early–middleOligocene origin for Tachinidae. Elodia and its closely related genera were studied, anew species, Kuwanimya zhanjiangensis Zhao, Zhang et Chen, 2012 was found anddescribed. |
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