Pisciforma, Setisura, and Furcatergalia (Order: Ephemeroptera) Are Not Monophyletic Based on 18S rDNA Sequences: A Response to Sun et al. (2006)

Abstract

Sun et al. (2006) recently published an analysis of phylogenetic relationships of the major lineages of maysies (Ephemeroptera). Their study used partial 18S rDNA sequences (583 nucleotides), which were analyzed via parsimony to obtain a molecular phylogenetic hypothesis. Their study included 23 maysy species, representing 20 families. They aligned the DNA sequences via default settings in Clustal and reconstructed a tree by using parsimony in PAUP*. However, this tree was not presented in the article, nor have they made the topology or alignment available despite multiple requests. This molecular tree was compared with previous hypotheses based on morphological data to “test” (but see below) which morphology-based relationships were not signiÞcantly different from the molecular topology. Although molecular data can help shed light on many of the fundamental questions in insect phylogenetics, it is important to perform analyses correctly and to accurately report results in a way that allows subsequent validation. Sun et al. (2006) provided an adequate review of the major traditional hypotheses concerning higher level classiÞcation and relationships among maysies. Some of these hypotheses are based on cladistic analysis of morphology, but others are intuitive phylogenies that were not derived from any formal repeatable and objective analysis. These authors failed to report previously published molecular hypotheses that shed light on maysy phylogeny, many of which disagree with their results. For example, there have been previously published molecular studies investigating higher level relationships among maysies and relatives