BioOne.org will be down briefly for maintenance on 17 December 2024 between 18:00-22:00 Pacific Time US. We apologize for any inconvenience.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 July 2008 Utility of DNA Sequences for Inferring Phylogenetic Relationships and Associating Morphologically Dissimilar Males and Females of the Bee-Killing Flies, Genus Melaloncha (Diptera: Phoridae)
Paul T. Smith, Brian V. Brown
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

The bee-killing flies, genus Melaloncha, are parasitoids of bees of the family Apidae, including stingless bees, bumble bees, and the western honey bee, Apis mellifera L. With >160 described species, Melaloncha is among the largest genera in the family Phoridae. Most species are known only from females as the males typically show too few differences to be useful in characterizing species. The monophyly of Melaloncha and its two subgenera (Udamochiras and Melaloncha s.s.) is strongly supported by morphological characters, but the phylogenetic relationships among the various species and species groups are not well understood. Here, we report on a preliminary molecular phylogenetic study of 30 exemplar Melaloncha species representing both subgenera and seven species groups by using a combination of nuclear (28S and CAD) and mitochondrial (12S, 16S, ND1, and CO1) genes for a total of 3,306 bp. Maximum parsimony analysis suggested the following relationships: 1) Melaloncha is monophyletic, 2) the subgenus M. (Udamochiras) is monophyletic and is a sister-group to M. (Melaloncha), and 3) each of the species groups for which we had multiple species were monophyletic with the M. furcata-group being the sister-group to all other Group II taxa. These results support hypotheses of relationships based on morphological characters. The utility of the molecular data for associating morphologically dissimilar males and females is discussed.

Paul T. Smith and Brian V. Brown "Utility of DNA Sequences for Inferring Phylogenetic Relationships and Associating Morphologically Dissimilar Males and Females of the Bee-Killing Flies, Genus Melaloncha (Diptera: Phoridae)," Annals of the Entomological Society of America 101(4), 713-721, (1 July 2008). https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2008)101[713:UODSFI]2.0.CO;2
Received: 15 August 2007; Accepted: 1 March 2008; Published: 1 July 2008
JOURNAL ARTICLE
9 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

KEYWORDS
apidae
molecular systematics
neotropical
parasitoid
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top