Higher Level Phylogeny of Curculionidae (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) based mainly on Larval Characters, with Special Reference to Broad‐Nosed Weevils

Abstract

A cladistic analysis of Curculionidae was performed using 49 characters (41 from larvae, three from pupae, and five from adults). Illustrations of characters of immatures are provided. The analysis involved 19 terminal units and a hypothetical ancestor determined by the outgroup comparison method used to root the tree. One most parsimonious cladogram was obtained based on the complete data set and the following phylogenetic hypothesis is proposed: Ithycerinae, Microcerinae, and Brachycrinae sensu stricto are broad-nosed weevils placed sequentially at the base of the cladogram. The remaining weevil subfamilies form two major natural groups: one constituted by the sister taxa Rhynchophorinae-Platypodinae; the other with Erirhininae at the base, as sister taxon of the "Curculionidae sensu stricto " which show an unresolved trichotomy involving Curculioninae, Cossoninae-Scolytinae, and the clade including the Entiminae and allied subfamilies. This latter clade of broad-nosed weevils has Thecesterninae at the base; the next branch is Amycterinae, the sister taxon of the clade comprising two groups: one constituted by Aterpinae, Rhytirrhininae, and Gonipterinae; the other is Entiminae whose units form two main clades: one constituted by the sister tribes Pachyrhynchini-Ectemnorhinini, and the other by Alophini, Sitonini, and Entimini. When the analysis was done using only immature characters, results congruent with those based on the complete data set were obtained, except for the placement of Erirhininae. According to the results the hypothesis of monophyly of broad-nosed weevils is not accepted; the Entiminae are justified as monophyletic and their natural classification into tribes is proposed and the phylogenetic position and relationships of higher taxa of Curculionidae are discussed. This paper shows the importance of immature characters in recognition of natural groups and relationships in Curculionidae.Forty-nine characters were selected ( Table 1). Most of them (84%) are taken from larval morphology (characters 1-41), three from the pupa (characters 42-44), and five from the adult, including the type of oviposition (characters 45-49). Larval and Pupal CharactersThe selection of immature characters was based on a previous morphological study of broad-nosed weevils (Marvaldi, 1995). The information on larvae and pupae Higher Level Phylogeny of Curculionidae Rhynchophorinae Platypodinae Sitonini Entiminae * FIG. 40. Cladogram based on immature characters. *Broad-nosed weevils.Marvaldi

Morphology of the larvae of three Central European Strophosoma Billberg, 1820 (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Entiminae) species

“…The presence of four ventral malar setae in larvae of the genus Strophosoma confirms the observations of Marvaldi (1998a) that this character, as well as the shape of the antennal sensorium (Marvaldi 1997(Marvaldi , 2003, can be considered an additional apomorphic character for larvae of the subfamily Entiminae, while other Curculionidae, e.g. Cyclominae in the sense of Marvaldi (1998bMarvaldi ( , 2003, possess the plesiomorphic number of five vms.…”

“…Photos were made using an Olympus BX63 microscope and processed by Olympus cellSens Dimension software. Names and abbreviations of body parts follow the terminology proposed by Scherf (1964), setae according to Anderson (1947) and May (1994), and mouthparts and antennae by Marvaldi (1997Marvaldi ( , 1998a. All specimens are deposited in the collection of the Department of Zoology, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, in Lublin.…”

New ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Platypodinae) from Miocene Mexican and Dominican ambers and their paleobiogeographical implications

“…Although Platypodinae was traditionally considered an independent family within Curculionoidea (Wood 1986(Wood , 1993Wood and Bright 1992), it is now considered within the family Curculionidae (Kuschel et al 2000;Oberprieler et al 2007;Alonso-Zarazaga and Lyal 2009;Bouchard et al 2011;Jordal et al 2011Jordal et al , 2014. Extensive analyses by Kuschel et al (2000) and Farrell et al (2001) suggested that platypodines should be better classed as a group of scolytines (Jordal and Cognato 2012); however, other researchers, namely Marvaldi (1997) and Marvaldi et al (2002Marvaldi et al ( , 2008, concluded they were more suitably described as being independent subfamilies within Curculionidae. Jordal et al (2011) carried out an extensive phylogenetic study on the most prominent wood-boring taxa, within which they suggested that Scolytinae and Platypodinae were sister lineages within Curculionidae and that early diversification made them as advanced weevils.…”

Phylogenetic analysis of the complete mitogenome sequence of the raspberry weevil, Aegorhinus superciliosus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), supports monophyly of the tribe Aterpini

“…The ancient origin of this superfamily (McKenna et al, 2009) along with the huge number of constituent taxa (Oberprieler et al, 2007) has made the understanding of its evolutionary relationships and its phylogenetic reconstruction challenging (Legalov, 2006). Some attempts to solve this problem have involved the use of morphological characteristics of subgroups or certain organ systems (Calder, 1989;Lyal et al, 2006;Marvaldi, 1997) and the use of molecular markers (Bocak et al, 2014;Caterino et al, 2002;Hundsdoerfer et al, 2009;McKenna et al, 2009;Robertson et al, 2008;Wild and Maddison, 2008). Nevertheless, both approaches have complications regarding the different compositions of the clades at different levels (Hundsdoerfer et al, 2009).…”