The phylogenetic relationships of the Australian scincid lizards currently assigned to the genus Leiolopisma have been examined by quantitative micro-complement fixation (MC'F) comparisons of serum albumin. The results of these comparisons do not support the monophyly implicit in these species' current congeneric status, but suggest instead that the Australian species of Leiolopisma belong to several distinct phyletic lineages within the Eugongylus group. These findings are supported by several sets of non-biochemical characters, including features of scalation, osteology and karyotype. None of the Australian species shares a close relationship with the type-species of Leiolopisrna (L. telfairii), and so a new taxonomic arrangement is proposed which distributes them among the following genera: Bartleia, gen. nov. (jigurru); Bassiana, gen. nov. (duperreyi, platynotum and trilineata); Cautula, gen. nov. (zia); Niveoscincus, gen. nov. (coventryi, greeni, metallicus, microlepidotus, ocellatus, orocryptus, palfreymani and pretiosus); and Pseudemoia Fuhn, 1967 (baudini, entrecasteauxii Group 1; entrecasteauxii Group 2, rawlinsoni and spenceri). Preliminary comparisons suggest that other Leiolopisma species, from New Caledonia, Lord Howe I. and New Zealand, belong to phyletic lineages which are distinct from any of the Australian 'Leiolopisrna' and from the type-species.

Cytochrome P450s are a superfamily of haemoproteins, important in the metabolism of endogenous compounds and xenobiotics. As a first step to elucidating the role of this family in insecticide resistance in the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, we have cloned and mapped multiple P450 genes. Sixteen cDNAs encoding full-length P450s were cloned and physically mapped to the mosquito's polytene chromosomes. Fourteen of these encode putative CYP6 proteins and two encode P450s belonging to the CYP9 class. Eighteen new A. gambiae Cyp4 P450 genes were identified using degenerate PCR primers, cDNAs were detected for ten and in situ locations for thirteen members of this gene family.

Several recent studies have suggested that hybridization may play a previously unrecognized and important role in the evolution of corals. Our observations of polymorphic and recombinant sequences in the multicopy ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region suggested the possible hybrid origin of two European soft coral species, Alcyonium hibernicum and Bellonella bocagei. To examine this possibility further we cloned and sequenced ITS-1 from multiple individuals and populations of these two species as well as two sympatric congeners, A. coralloides and A. sp. M2. Phylogenetic analyses separated the observed sequence variants into two distinct clades. All A. coralloides sequences belonged to clade A, while A. sp. M2 had only clade B sequences. A majority of A. hibernicum individuals, however, contained both clade A and B sequences that were identical to the predominant sequence variants found in A. coralloides and A. sp. M2, respectively. This pattern of additivity suggests that A. hibernicum originated from a hybrid cross between A. coralloides and A. sp. M2, a hypothesis that is supported by its unusual mode of reproduction (meiotic parthenogenesis). The predominant sequence variant found in B. bocagei was a unique, derived clade B sequence; in addition, however, most individuals of this species also had copies of a sequence identified as a recombinant between clade A and clade B sequence types. The presence of this recombinant sequence in the B. bocagei genome suggests that this species may also be the product of past hybridization events within the clade. Reticulate evolution may explain the failure of several previous studies to resolve the phylogeny of these four species.

Low rates of evolution in cnidarian mitochondrial genes such as COI and 16S rDNA have hindered molecular systematic studies in this important invertebrate group. We sequenced fragments of 3 mitochondrial protein-coding genes (NADH dehydrogenase subunits ND2, ND3 and ND6) as well as the COI-COII intergenic spacer, the longest noncoding region found in the octocoral mitochondrial genome, to determine if any of these regions contain levels of variation sufficient for reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships among genera of the anthozoan subclass Octocorallia. Within and between the soft coral families Alcyoniidae and Xeniidae, sequence divergence in the genes ND2 (539 bp), ND3 (102 bp), and ND6 (444 bp) ranged from 0.5% to 12%, with the greatest pairwise distances between the 2 families. The COI-COII intergenic spacer varied in length from 106 to 122 bp, and pairwise sequence divergence values ranged from 0% to 20.4%. Phylogenetic trees constructed using each region separately were poorly resolved. Better phylogenetic resolution was obtained in a combined analysis using all 3 protein-coding regions (1085 bp total). Although relationships among some pairs of species and genera were well supported in the combined analysis, the base of the alcyoniid family tree remained an unresolved polytomy. We conclude that variation in the NADH subunit coding regions is adequate to resolve phylogenetic relationships among families and some genera of Octocorallia, but insufficient for most species - or population-level studies. Although the COI-COII intergenic spacer exhibits greater variability than the protein-coding regions and may contain useful species-specific markers, its short length limits its phylogenetic utility.