Abstract
Populations of the ground beetle Scaphinotus petersi are isolated in subalpine conifer forest habitats on mountain ranges or Sky Islands in southeastern Arizona. Previous work on this species has suggested these populations have been isolated since the last post-glacial maximum times as warming caused this cool adapted species to retreat to high elevations. To test this hypothesis, we inferred the phylogeny from mitochondrial DNA sequence data from several Arizona Sky Island populations of Scaphinotus petersi and estimated the divergence time of the currently isolated populations. We found two major clades of Scaphinotus petersi, an eastern clade and a western group. Our results indicated most mountain ranges form clades except the Huachucas, which are polyphyletic and the Santa Catalinas, which are paraphyletic. We estimated the Pinaleño population is much older than the last glacial maximum, but the Huachuca and Pinal populations may have been fragmented from the Santa Catalina population since the post-glacial maximum times.
Highlights
Carabidae is one of the larger families of insects with approximately 40,000 described species (Lorenz 2005)
The goal of this study was to infer the biogeographic history of S. petersi in southeastern Arizona and investigate how the paleoclimatic oscillations of Quaternary affected the distribution of populations in the Sky Islands
We present a preliminary genealogy of mitochondrial DNA sequences and use these data to address questions about population structure of this species and examine the potential role of the Pleistocene climate changes in the differentiation some of the Sky Island populations of S. petersi
Summary
Carabidae (ground beetle family) is one of the larger families of insects with approximately 40,000 described species (Lorenz 2005). Karen Ober et al / ZooKeys 147: 183–197 (2011). Cychrines consist of about 150 species in four genera and are restricted to the Northern Hemisphere; the Cychrini genus Scaphinotus, found only in North America, began its initial radiation about 35 million years ago (Osawa et al 2004, Scudder 1900) into 55 species (Lorenz, 2005). Scaphinotus petersi is a large ground beetle confined exclusively to moist coniferous forests that occur in southern Arizona at elevations > 1800 m. All six S. petersi subspecies live only on mountains in the sub-Mogollon area of Arizona, a region known as the Sky Islands
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