A PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF THE MITE FAMILY CAECULIDAE (ACARI: TROMBIDIFORMES)

ANDRÉS OSVALDO PORTA

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 35th Annual Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society and XII Reunión Argentina de Cladística y Biogeografia; 2016

Willy Hennig Society

The mite family Caeculidae (Acari: Trombidiformes) contains nine genera: Caeculus (18 spp.),Andocaeculus (5 spp.), Allocaeculus (33 spp.), Neocaeculus (11 spp.), Procaeculus (11 spp.),Microcaeculus (21 spp.), Calocaeculus (1 sp.), Sclerocaeculus (2 spp.) and Pseudocaeculus (1 sp.) . Mostof the species has been described before the seminal work of Y. Coineau and, because of that, mostdescriptions are useless for establish phylogenetic relations. In this presentation we study the phylogenetic relationships between genera using literature (lt.) and new data from firsthand observations(fho) covering the most diverse genera in the family: Caeculus (3 lt, 4 fho spp.), Andocaeculus (26 fhospp.), Allocaeculus (1lt, 11 fho spp.), Neocaeculus (10 lt, 1 fho spp.), Procaeculus (2 lt, 2 fho spp.) andMicrocaeculus (6 lt, 4 fho). Based on this data, a matrix with 94 morphologic characters (defined mainlyafter the work of Coineau) has been elaborated. A phylogenetic analysis was performed on TNT usingtwo taxons belonging to the same cohort of Caeculidae, Anystina, as outgroups: Walziasp.(Anystidae:Anystinae) and Saxidromus delamarei (Saxidromidae) . The main results of this analysisare: 1) The genera Andocaeculus, Allocaeculus, Microcaeculus, Neocaeculus and Procaeculus areretained as monophyletic, 2) Caeculus is paraphyletic, constituting a clade with Procaeculus, 3)Psammophily evolved on at least three independent occasions, two into the genus Andocaeculus and onein Microcaeculus.