Revision Of The Genus Coptotermes (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) In China

Termites of the genus Coptotermes (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) harming trees andbuildings are known as the economically important social insect.Due to their species-rich,morphological convergence,different instars and distinct castes in the same socialpopulation,and lacking of the reliable characters for the morphological identification andso on,These characteristics make the classification of this genus difficult and subjective.Asa result,the classification of genus Coptotermes is poorly resolved.In this dissertation,we examined the phylogeny of10Coptotermes species and severalunidentified specimens from China using four mitochondrial DNA regions,that is,16Sribosomal RNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit I genes,cytochrome oxidase subunit IIgenes and internal transcribed spacer,to explore the criterion of the calssification of genusCoptotermes in China.The phylogenies show that the interspecific pairwise sequencedivergence between the species of Coptotermes monosetosus,Coptotermes cochlearus,Coptotermes obliquus,Coptotermes dimorphus and Coptotermes gestroi are less than0.008and the species of Coptotermes gulangyuensis,Coptotermes changtaiensis,Coptotermes longistriatus,Coptotermes varicapitatus and Coptotermes formosanus are lessthan0.011.Phylogeny trees are consistent with the results of the genetic distanceanalysis.Thus,we determined that the C. monosetosus,C. cochlearus,C. obliquus and C.dimorphus are the synonym of C. gestroi,meanwhile the C. gulangyuensis,C. changtaiensis,C. longistriatus and C. varicapitatus are the synonym of C. formosanus.Through our analysis,the sequence divergence of four genes(COI,COII,16S rRNA andITS)within those species of Coptotermes are different.Those may provide a reference toformulate the molecular identification standard of Coptotermes.In conclusion,our resultsindicate that there maybe only two Coptotermes species in China,that is C. gestroi and C.formosanus and the Coptotermes should not separate into two subgenus,OligorinitermesXia et He and Polycrinitermes Xia et He.The results of this study not only make a certain contribution to the classification ofCoptotermes in china,but also enrich our understanding of termite molecular characters.