| Ants are the typical eusociality insect, belonging to Formicidae, Hymenoptera. Ant is a conspicuous component of terrestrial biodiversity. Although Formicinae includes a large number of abundant and ecologically important species that often subjected to ecological and sociobiological studies, little is known about its phylogeny. Despite there being several classifications of Formicinae based on a variety of morphological characteristics, such as female and male characteristics and larval morphology Wheeler, Emery, Wheeler&Wheeler, Agosti, Bolton, findings of tribes or genus-groups only represent artificial assemblages and disagree with each other between different myrmecologists, even the same myrmecologist in different period. In particular, some aspects of worker morphology show a strong tendency towards convergence, making it challenging to infer phylogenetic relationships from morphological characteristics alone. In this paper, a new phylogenetic framework based on molecular data is derived and tested against these schemes.In this paper, the phylogeny of the ant subfamily Formicinae (48species,16genera) based on molecular systematics are studied. Methods according general PCR to amplification of48species for parttial COIã€COII and Cytb mitochodrial gene sequences and sequencing after purification. Two species, Cerapachys sulcinodis and Radoszkowskius oculata are used as outgroup in our study. The base frequences, base substitutions and genetic distances of gene sequences are analyzed by using CLUSTALX1.81, DNAtar, MEGA4, PAUP4.0and MrBayesV3.1softwares. The phylogenetic relationships of these species from family level are reconstruct by using Neighbor-Jining (NJ), Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Bayesian Inference (BI) methods. Integrating the results of molecular phylogenetic analyses with morphological and molecular evidences from previously published studies, conclusions are as follows:(1) Except for the Myrmoteras, our study of the phylogenetic relationship of Formicinae is congruent with many previous classifications based on morphological analysis by Bolton in1994.(2) Myrmoteras clustering with Euprenolepis as a sister-group and Myrmoteras being as a member of the tribe Lasiini, this points is inconsistent with the previous studies. Needing to be studies in the future.(3) Formica, Polyergus, Pro formica and Cataglyphis are the members of the tribe Formicini, and being had the phylogenetic relationship as follows:((Formica+Polyergus)+(Proformica+Cataglyphis)).(4) This result well supported that the genus Oecophylla is as only one member of the tribe Oecophllini. And Oecophylla has close relationship with Formicini.(5) Lepisiota, Plagiolepis and Anoplolepis are the members of the tribe Plagiolepidini. and being had the phylogenetic relationship as follows:(Anoplolepis+(Plagiolepis+Lepisiota)).(6) Camponotus and Polyrhachis are the members of the tribe Camponotini. The genus Camponotus is a paraphyly group.(7) Polyrhachis paracamponota should be transferred to the genus Camponotus. |
