Molecular phylogenetic analysis of three groups of Asian epilachnine ladybird beetles recognized by the female internal reproductive organs and modes of sperm transfer

Abstract

We determined partial sequences of the nuclear 28S ribosomal RNA gene (717 base pairs) and mitochondrial DNA NADH-dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene (535 base pairs) of 25 species of phytophagous ladybird beetles from Asia that comprise 16 species of the genus Henosepilachna and nine species of the genus Epilachna, and reconstructed the phylogenetic trees for each gene by the maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood methods. The estimated phylogenetic relationships were consistent with those obtained by the mode of sperm transfer and female internal reproductive system, and supported an earlier assumption that very similar elytral spot patterns of some sympatric members of epilachnine beetles evolved independently.

Keywords:

• gene tree
• epilachnine beetles
• female internal reproductive organ
• modes of sperm transfer
• elytral convergent evolution

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our thanks to Dr Susumu Nakano and Dr Naoyuki Fujiyama for collecting samples. This study was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (no. 14000007 to N.K., nos 14204081 and 18207005 to H.K.), and 21^st Century Centre of Excellence (COE) Program of Hokkaido University, “The Neo-Science of Natural History – Origin and Evolution of Natural Diversity.”