PHYLOGENY OF NORTH-AMERICAN CICINDELA TIGER BEETLES INFERRED FROM MULTIPLE MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA SEQUENCES

Tiger beetles in the genus Cicindela (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae) have b een used as a model system for studies in ecology and conservation bio logy. Work on this group will greatly benefit from the availability of a phylogenetic hypothesis. We selected a representative sample of 23 North American Cicindela and 6 out groups to reconstruct a phylogeny b ased on 1896 nucleotide positions from three mitochondrial genes (Cyto chrome b, Cytochrome oxidase III, and 16S rRNA). Cladistic analysis of these three data sets yielded widely different tree topologies, but c haracter conflict between them appears to be relatively low. The combi ned analysis of all data resulted in three similar shortest trees of 3 453 steps. One of these was also recovered after successive weighting and was considered the best estimate of relationships. The most basal taxa of North American Cicindela (s.l.) were in the cosmopolitan subge nus Cylindera. The derived taxa were in the subgenus Cicindela (s. str .), a group dominating at higher latitudes in the Nearctic and Palearc tic Region. The molecular analysis was essentially in agreement with t he traditional classification which has been worked out based on male genitalic structures by E. Rivalier (1954, Rev,. Entomol. Francaise 21 :249-268). In the molecular analysis, Rivalier's species groups and su bgenera were mostly found to be composed of closely related taxa but s everal of them were not monophyletic. Implicit in the traditional clas sification is a sequence from basal to derived groups which we found t o be essentially reversed in the molecular analysis. We also discuss t he conceptual differences in the establishment of the traditional clas sification by Rivalier (1954) and the cladistic analysis presented in this study. (C) 1997 Academic Press.