Abstract
Only six mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) have been previously published for Cicadellidae, the largest family of Hemiptera. This study provides complete, annotated mitogenomes of two additional cicadellid, species Maiestas dorsalis and Japananus hyalinus, and the first comparative mitogenome analysis across the superfamily Membracoidea. The mitogenomes of both sequenced species are similar to those of other studied hemipteran mitogenomes in organization and the lengths are 15,352 and 15,364 bp with an A + T content of 78.7% and 76.6%, respectively. In M. dorsalis, all sequenced genes are arranged in the putative ancestral insect gene arrangement, while the tRNA cluster trnW-trnC-trnY is rearranged to trnY-trnW-trnC in J. hyalinus, the first reported gene rearrangement in Membracoidea. Phylogenetic analyses of the 11 available membracoid mitogenomes and outgroups representing the other two cicadomorphan superfamilies supported the monophyly of Membracoidea, and indicated that treehoppers are a derived lineage of leafhoppers. ML and BI analyses yielded topologies that were congruent except for relationships among included representatives of subfamily Deltocephalinae. Exclusion of third codon positions of PCGs improved some node support values in ML analyses.
Highlights
The hemipterous superfamily Membracoidea is of interest because it is the most diverse and successful lineage of sap-sucking phytophagous insects, and because of the great variety of behavioral and life-history strategies found within this group
Only nine complete mitochondrial genomes of Membracoidea have been deposited in GenBank, including the aetalionid Darthula hardwickii (KP316404)[17], the membracids Leptobelus gazella (JF801955)[18] and Entylia carinata (KX495488)[19], and the cicadellids Drabescoides nuchalis (KR349344)[20], Nephotettix cincticeps (KP749836), Tambocerus sp.(KT827824)[21], Empoasca vitis (KJ815009)[22] (Qin et al.[23] recently showed that Chinese specimens previously identified as E. vitis are E. onukii so the specimens used by Zhou et al.[22] were probably misidentified because true E. vitis is a European species not known to occur in China), Homalodisca vitripennis (AY875213; listed as “H. coagulata”) and Idioscopus nitidulus (KR024406)
control region (CR) sequences in most species showed the strongest A + T% biases, except for Entylia carinata, Drabescoides nuchalis and J. hyalinus
Summary
The hemipterous superfamily Membracoidea (leafhoppers and treehoppers) is of interest because it is the most diverse and successful lineage of sap-sucking phytophagous insects, and because of the great variety of behavioral and life-history strategies found within this group. We present and analyze the complete mitochondrial genomes of two additional deltocephaline species Maiestas dorsalis (Motschulsky) (tribe Deltocephalini) and Japananus hyalinus (Osborn) (tribe Opsiini), including the gene order, nucleotide composition, codon usage, tRNA secondary structure, rRNA secondary structure, gene overlaps and non-coding regions. Using these new sequences, along with those of previously published mitochondrial genomes of Membracoidea, we reconstructed the phylogenetic relationships among them based on the concatenated nucleotide sequences of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs) and two ribosomal RNA genes
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