Abstract
A phylogenetic analysis of the genus Dichotrachelus (Curculionidae: Cyclominae) was carried out, based on a morphological matrix and, for some species, on mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I sequences. Bayesian Inference, Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony were implemented and the results were compared. The genus is found to be isolated in the subfamily, not related to the only other Palaearctic tribe (Hipporhinini) and possibly nearer to the south-American genera of Cyclominae of the tribe Listroderini. Among these, Macrostyphlus is also equally associated to mosses as the host plant. In Dichotrachelus, two main clades were recognized, one distributed in the western part of the Mediterranean region (Iberian Peninsula, northern Africa and southern France) and the second distributed in the Alps and Apennines. Within each clade, some differentiated monophyletic subgroups could be identified. An evaluation of the most important characters that led to the phylogenetic reconstruction indicated the male genital sclerite as the most useful structure to characterize the different clades.
Highlights
The genus Dichotrachelus Stierlin, 1853 includes 59 species from southern Europe and NorthAfrica [1]
Topology and supports of the Bayesian inference (BI) consensus tree were checked for congruence with topologies obtained with Maximum likelihood (ML) and MP
The terminal clades were uniformly present in all analyses, with various supports, whereas deep phylogeny, i.e., relationships among the large monophyletic groups, was not always clearly defined and in part differed among the analyses
Summary
The genus Dichotrachelus Stierlin, 1853 includes 59 species from southern Europe and NorthAfrica [1]. The genus has raised much interest since its description, and after a sequence of new species being named, a first revision was proposed in 1878 [3]. Other than descriptions of new species, taxonomic revisions of local faunas have been provided for Switzerland [4], for the Iberian Peninsula [5,6,7], for France [8,9], and for Italy [10,11,12]. Some remarks on relationships among the Iberian and north-African species and their historical biogeography were provided in 1987 [7], based on a discussion of the most important morphological characters, but without a cladistic analysis
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