Molecular phylogeny of the megadiverse insect infraorder Bibionomorpha sensu lato (Diptera) Jan Ševčík1, David Kaspřák1, Michal Manti£1, Scott Fitzgerald2, Tereza Ševčíková1, Andrea Tóthová3 and Mathias Jaschhof4 1 Faculty of Science, Department of Biology and Ecology, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic 2 Pacific Northwest Diptera Research Lab, Corvallis, OR, United States of America 3 Faculty of Science, Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 4 Station Linné, Färjestaden, Sweden ABSTRACT The phylogeny of the insect infraorder Bibionomorpha (Diptera) is reconstructed based on the combined analysis of three nuclear (18S, 28S, CAD) and three mitochondrial (12S, 16S, COI) gene markers. All the analyses strongly support the monophyly of Bibionomorpha in both the narrow (sensu stricto) and the broader (sensu lato) concepts. The major lineages of Bibionomorpha sensu lato (Sciaroidea, Bibionoidea, Anisopodoidea, and Scatopsoidea) and most of the included families are supported as monophyletic groups. Axymyiidae was not found to be part of Bibionomorpha nor was it found to be its sister group. Bibionidae was paraphyletic with respect to Hesperinidae and Keroplatidae was paraphyletic with respect to Lygistorrhinidae. The included Sciaroidea incertae sedis (except Ohakunea Edwards) were found to belong to one clade, but the relationships within this group and its position within Sciaroidea require further study. Subjects Biodiversity, Entomology, Evolutionary Studies, Genomics, Taxonomy Keywords Lower Diptera, Sciaroidea, Phylogenetic analysis, Molecular markers, Systematics Submitted 11 July 2016 Accepted 13 September 2016 INTRODUCTION Published 18 October 2016 Bibionomorpha is one of the approximately 10 infraorders currently recognized in the Corresponding author Jan Ševčík,
[email protected] megadiverse insect order Diptera (Wood & Borkent, 1989; Oosterbroek & Courtney, 1995; Academic editor Wiegmann et al., 2011).