Phylogenetic relationships of the subfamily Melolonthinae (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae) Mª MILAGRO COCA-ABIA Insect Syst.Evol. Coca-Abia, M.: Phylogenetic relationships of the subfamily Melolonthinae (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae). Insect Syst. Evol. 38: 447-472. Copenhagen, November, 2007. ISSN 1399-560X A cladistic analysis of the subfamily Melolonthinae was undertaken using 48 taxa and 47 external morphology and male and female genitalia characters. Serica brunna and Pachydema hirticollis were chosen as outgroups. The aim of the present study is to assess supraspecific relationships and to test the monophyly of Melolonthinae and included tribes, genera and sub- genera. A general parsimony heuristic search was used to find the most parsimonious trees. Successive character weighting was used to assess the internal consistency of the data. The robustness of the clades was assessed with Bootstrap and Bayesian phylogenetic analysis. Melolonthinae is found to be a non-monophyletic group, whereas the monophyly of Holotrichia, Trichesthes, Phyllophaga and its subgenera, is here questioned. Mª M. Coca-Abia, Centro de Investigaciones y Tecnologías Agroalimentarias (CITA). Unidad de Sanidad Vegetal. Apartado de Correos 727. 50080 Zaragoza, Spain. (
[email protected]) Phone: 00 34 976 716323. Fax: 00 34 976 716335. Introduction Thus, in this point, Lacroix (1989, 1993, 2000) According to some of the current checklists classification is going to be followed. This author (Evans, 2003), the subfamily Melolonthinae in- includes seven tribes in Melolonthinae based on cludes around 800 genera and 12,000 species only morphological features shared by all of them. It is in the New World. This huge biodiversity, togeth- not possible to confirm that these characters are er with the fact that some species are crop pests, synapomorphies until a phylogenetic analysis be has led to attempt to classify this group (Lacroix, done, but this grouping (Lacroix 1989, 1993, 1989, 1993, 2000; Evans, 2003; Baraud, 1992).