No abstract

The vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster is a pivotal model for invertebrate development, genetics, physiology, neuroscience, and disease. The whole family Drosophilidae, which contains over 4,400 species, offers a plethora of cases for comparative and evolutionary studies. Despite a long history of phylogenetic inference, many relationships remain unresolved among the genera, subgenera and species groups in the Drosophilidae. To clarify these relationships, we first developed a set of new genomic markers and assembled a multilocus dataset of 17 genes from 704 species of Drosophilidae. We then inferred a species tree with highly supported groups for this family. Additionally, we were able to determine the phylogenetic position of some previously unplaced species. These results establish a new framework for investigating the evolution of traits in fruit flies, as well as valuable resources for systematics.

We present a phylogenetic hypothesis for 72 '' Drosophila'' species, constructed through analysis from the paralogous alpha methyldopa (amd) and dopa decarboxylase (ddc) nuclear genes (encompassing a total of 2015 base pairs). Our data support the subdivision of the paraphyletic subgenus ''Drosophila'' into three main radiations (the immigrans-tripunctata, the virilis-repleta and the Hawaiian Drosophilidae), each of which is further subdivided to originate monophyletic Ôsub-radiationsÕ. Moreover, this study raises the possibility that the Zaprionus⁄Liodrosophila species encompass a fourth radiation within the subgenus '' Drosophila'' phylogeny and provides temporal estimates for each of the postulated divergence events.