Phylogenetic analysis of the flower-dwelling thrips family Heterothripidae (Thysanoptera: Terebrantia)

V. PEREYRA; C. WEIRAUCH; SZUMIK, C.; A. CAVALLIERI

Riverside, CA

Congreso; XXXI Willi Hennig Meeting; 2012

University of California, Riverside - WHS

Heterothripidae are an exclusively American family that contains 80 species in four genera (Aulacothrips Hood, Heterothrips Hood, Lenkothrips De Santis & Sureda and Scutothrips Stannard). Previous research on Heterothripidae has focused on the description of new species, but no studies have attempted to test the genus-level classification of the family. Morphology within the family is very conservative, making it difficult to find informative characters. Because of that and to test the current classification and generic limits, morphological and molecular evidence was compiled in order to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of Heterothripidae. A data matrix with 103 morphological characters and 1601bp of the 28s rDNA gene (D2 and D3-D5 regions) was analysed that included about 60% of the described species of Heterothripidae.