Preliminar phylogenetic analysis of the American species of Epicauta Dejean (Meloidae: Meloinae: Epicautini) based on adult morphological characters

CAMPOS SOLDINI MARÍA PAULA; SAFENRAITER MELANIA E.

Mendoza

Simposio; Fourth International Tenebrionoidea Symposium; 2015

Epicauta is one of the most diverse genera of Meloidae. Within this genus, two subgenera are currently recognized: the nominotypical and Macrobasis LeConte. The subgenus Epicauta is distributed throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, with about 400 species; and Macrobasis is almost entirely confined to North America, including 70 species. The phylogenetic analysis of 76 terminal taxa was performed on the basis of 81 morphological characters, applying parsimony algorithms of the TNT program. The outgroup includes Pyrota wagneri (Pyrotini) and Tetraonyx seminiger (Tetraonycini), and the ingroup 74 species of Epicauta, two belonging to the subgenus Macrobasis and 72, to the nominotypic genus. Among the latter, 55 come from South America and 17 from North America, one for each species group described for this region. North American species are included in order to test if they constitute a clade different from that of the South American ones, or if some South American species could be incorporated to some previously defined North American species groups. The data matrix was analyzed with two different procedures, under equal weights and under implied weights. The support of each clade was evaluated with ?symmetric resampling? and ?relative Bremer support?. The phylogenetic analysis under equal weights resulted in 3726 most parsimonious cladograms, used to build a strict consensus tree that was compared with the tree obtained through implied weight with K5 concavity constant. Our data base supports the monophyly of Epicauta. Although many previously described species groups within Epicauta were recovered as monophyletic groups in this analysis, the cladogram showed many unresolved relationships. This indicates the need for obtaining additional data from genetics or immature stages, which should probably allow us to resolve the relationships within this clade more fully.Key words: phylogenetic analysis, parsimony, Epicauta, South American species.