Phylogeny of the stink bug tribe Chlorocorini (Heteroptera, Pentatomidae) based on DNA and morphological data: the evolution of key phenotypic traits

Abstract

23Pentatomidae is the fourth largest family of true bugs, comprising nine subfamilies and 24 over 40 tribes. Few tribes in the family have been studied in a phylogenetic context, and 25 none of them have been examined using molecular data. Here, we conduct a 26 phylogenetic study of the tribe Chlorocorini (Pentatominae) combining 69 27 morphological characters and five DNA loci in a bayesian framework. The tribe stands 28 out as the most diverse tribe in the subfamily Pentatominae which occurs exclusively in 29 the New World. Chlorocorini was proposed as a probable monophyletic group based on 30 synapomorphies found on nearly all body parts, including the spined humeral angles of 31 the pronotum, a dorsal projection on the apices of each femora, the absence of an 32 abdominal spine and the presence of well-developed, paired projections in the male 33 genitalia (hypandrium). Here, we provide solid evidence that the tribe as currently 34 recognized is not monophyletic based both on DNA and morphological data. The 35 genera Arvelius Spinola and Eludocoris Thomas were consistently placed outside of the 36Chlorocorini, while the remaining genera were found to form a monophyletic group. 37 Furthermore, all morphological diagnostic characters for the tribe were homoplastic, 38 except for the developed hypandrium. Lastly, we also provide a preliminary glimpse of 39 main phylogenetic relationships within the Pentatomidae, which indicate that most of 40 the included subfamilies and tribes are not monophyletic. Our results suggest that the 41 current classification of Pentatomidae is not completely adequate to reflect its 42 evolutionary history, and we urge for a complete phylogeny of the family. 43 44

Molecular and Developmental Signatures of Genital Size Macro-Evolution in Bugs

“…Since there is not a single phylogeny for all the taxa of interest, we used a super-tree approach in CLANN with the average consensus algorithm, which preserves branch lengths ( Creevey and McInerney 2005 ). We inferred the super-tree using 11 molecular phylogenies of hemipterans ( Li et al 2012 ; Nováková et al 2013 ; Zhang et al 2016 ; Wang et al 2017 ; Wang et al 2019 ; Johnson et al 2018 ; De Moya et al 2019 ; Forthman et al 2019 ; Liu et al 2019 ; Cao et al 2020 ; Genevcius et al 2021 ), posteriorly replacing taxa with closely related species to match those with genital and transcriptomic data ( supplementary data S2, Supplementary Material online). We dated the phylogeny using the function “chronos” in the R package Ape v. 5.5 ( Paradis et al 2003 ), with a relaxed model and the same calibration points as in Johnson et al (2018) .…”

Copulatory function and development shape modular architecture of genitalia differently in males and females

“…For the interspecific analyses, we analyzed one specimen of each species in the phylogeny of the tribe Chlorocorini and related groups (Genevcius et al. 2020) to which we had access, totalizing 28 species.…”

“…For the intraspecific analyses, we sampled specimens of the green-belly stink bug, Dichelops melacanthus (N = 54 ♂ and 41 ♀), from 11 populations collected in Brazil between 2017 and 2019 (Table S1). For the interspecific analyses, we analyzed one specimen of each species in the phylogeny of the tribe Chlorocorini and related groups (Genevcius et al 2020) to which we had access, totalizing 28 species.…”