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Abstract
Relationships within the Aleyrodinae are investigated phylogenetically through a cladistic analysis of 94 (70 binary and 24 multistate) morphological characters derived from the pupal case. This is the first attempt to construct a phylogenetic classification at genus level on a world basis for the subfamily Aleyrodinae. More than 430 species, about one third of all described species, were examined. These belonged to 124 genera, of which 117 were aleyrodines (including two undescribed genera) and seven were out‐groups from the subfamily Aleurodicinae (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae). Maximum parsimony analysis yielded more than 30 000 most‐parsimonious trees (length = 2730, RI = 0.672, CI = 0.137). Based upon the strict consensus tree, only 33 of the currently accepted genera, for which we had multiple representatives, were found to be monophyletic (44 genera of the 117 examined genera were monobasic and/or only one species was available for study). Monophyly of some economically important genera, e.g. Aleurolobus, Bemisia and Dialeurodes, as well as that of most previously proposed tribes, was not supported. No parallel diversification of whiteflies with host plants was detected, mostly because of within‐species host switching. Problems in determining generic level characters and applicability of tribal classification for this subfamily are discussed. One new genus, Pseudozaphanera Manzari gen. n., and seven new combinations, Aleuroclava lanceolata (Takahashi) comb. n., Crescentaleyrodes fumipennis (Hempel) comb. n., Pseudozaphanera niger (Maskell) comb. n., Pseudozaphanera papyrocarpae (Martin) comb. n., Pseudozaphanera rhachisreticulata (Martin) comb. n., Pseudozaphanera splendida (Martin) comb. n., Pseudozaphanera wariensis (Martin) comb. n., are proposed as well as three new generic synonyms; Taiwanaleyrodes Takahashi is placed in synonymy with Aleuroclava Singh syn. n., Hempelia Sampson & Drews with Aleurothrixus Quaintance & Baker syn. n. and Rositaleyrodes Meganathan & David with Aleurolobus Quaintance & Baker syn. n.
Acknowledgments
We are so grateful to J. H. Martin (BMNH) and S. Nakahara (USNM, Washington DC), for the loan and provision of material, essential for this study, especially J. H. Martin for his kind co‐operation in lending thousands of whitefly slides, and his review and comments on the manuscript. S. Manzari was supported by a grant from the Government of Iran.