Phylogenetic relationships of seven palearctic members of the maculipenniscomplex inferred from ITS2 sequence analysis

The sequences of the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) were determined from seven palearctic mosquitoes species belong ing to the Anopheles maculipennis species complex, namely An. atroparvus, A n. labranchiae, An. maculipennis, An. messeae, An. melanoon, An. sacharovi and An. martinius. The length of the ITS2 ranged from 280 to 300 bp, with a GC content of 49.4-54.1%. With the exception of An. messeae, negligible le vels of intraspecific polymorphism and no intrapopulation variation were ob served. The phylogenetic relationships among the members of the maculipenni s complex were inferred by maximum-parsimony analysis of the PAUP program a nd the neighbour-joining and maximun-likelihood analysis of the PHYLIP prog ram. All of the trees obtained were almost identical in topology, although the relationships among three species, i.e. An. maculipennis, An. messeae a nd An. melanoon, remained unresolved. The phylogenies were in good agreemen t with the previous gene-enzyme and polytene chromosome banding pattern stu dies.