| Publication Type: | Report |
| Year of Publication: | 2011 |
| Authors: | T. Breeschoten, Hendriks, K. P., Volkers, D. |
| Abstract: | Many members of the Cholevini tribe of carrion beetles occur in northwestern Europe. Usually, they are hard to identify to species level by general morphology alone. Genital morphology gives the best clue. We have researched the evolution of a selection of Cholevini taxa, based on the mtDNA gene COI, and supplemented this with the evolution of male genital characters. COI sequence data was taken from databases GenBank and BOLD. Morphological male genital data was taken from museum specimens and literature. Using both parsimony and maximum likelihood on the sequence data, most likely phylogenies were constructed. Their congruence with morphological male genital data was subsequently checked. It was found that the COI gene by itself can only support species couples being closely related, but fails to confirm deeper evolutionary relations. Also, congruence with morphological genital evolution is only moderately strong according to our data. We give suggestions on how to improve results with future research. |