Culicomorpha is a monophyletic group containing most bloodsucking lower dipterans, including many important vectors of pathogens. However, the higher-level phylogenetic relationships within Culicomorpha are largely unresolved, with multiple competing hypotheses based on molecular sequence data. Here we sequenced four nearly complete mitochondrial (mt) genomes representing four culicomorph families, and combined these new data with published mt genomes to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of all eight extant culicomorph families. We estimated phylogenies using four datasets and three methods. We also used four-cluster likelihood mapping to study potential incongruent topologies supported by the different datasets and phylogenetic questions generated by the previous studies. The results showed that a clade containing Ceratopogonidae, Thaumaleidae and Simuliidae was the sister group to all other Culicomorpha; in another clade, the Dixidae was basal to the remaining four families; Chaoboridae, Corethrellidae and Culicidae formed a monophyletic group and the Chironomidae was the sister group to this clade; Culicidae and Corethrellidae were sister groups in all trees. Our study provides novel mt genome data in Culicomorpha for three new family representatives, and the resulting mt phylogenomic analysis helps to resolve the phylogeny and taxonomy of Culicomorpha.

Green lacewings are one of the largest families within Neuroptera and are widely distributed all over the world. Many species within this group are important natural predators that are widely used for the biological control of pests in agricultural ecosystems. Several proposed phylogenetic relationships among the three subfamilies of Chrysopidae have been extensively debated. To further understand the higher phylogeny as well as the evolutionary history of Chrysopidae, we newly sequenced and analyzed the low-coverage genomes of 5 species (Apochrysa matsumurae, Chrysopa pallens, Chrysoperla furcifera, Italochrysa pardalina, Nothochrysa sinica), representing 3 subfamilies of Chrysopidae. There are 2213 orthologs selected to reconstruct the phylogenetic tree. Phylogenetic reconstruction was performed using both concatenation and coalescent-based approaches, based on different data matrices. All the results suggested that Chrysopinae were a monophyletic sister group to the branch Apochrysinae + Nothochrysinae. These results were completely supported, except by the concatenation analyses of the nt data matrix, which suggested that Apochrysinae were a sister group to Chrysopinae + Nothchrysinae. The different topology from the nt data matrix may have been caused by the limited sampling of Chrysopidae. The divergence time showed that Chrysopinae diverged from Apochrysinae + Nothochrysinae during the Early Cretaceous period (144–151 Ma), while Aporchrysinae diverged from Nothochrysinae around 117–133 Ma. These results will improve our understanding of the higher phylogeny of Chrysopidae and lay a foundation for the utilization of natural predators.

The family Erotylidae belongs to the superfamily Cucujoidea, which are phytophagous and mycophagous. So far, only two representative complete mitochondrial (mt) genomes of Erotylidae have been sequenced. Mitochondrial genomes of Tritoma metasobrina, Neotriplax arisana, and Episcapha opaca, which all belong to the subfamily Erotylinae, were sequenced using next-generation sequencing technology to better understand the diversity of mt genomes of Erotylidae. A comparative mt genomic analysis was conducted on the three sequenced representatives of Erotylinae and Languriinae sp. (Languriinae). The size of the complete mt genome of the 4 species ranged from 15,581 bp to 16,502 bp in length, including 37 genes (13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNAs, and 2 ribosomal RNAs) and the control region. The arrangements of their mt genomes are highly consistent with other Coleoptera species. The start codons of two PCGs (ND1 and ND5) and the stop codons of one PCG (ATP8) were illustrated differences between Languriinae sp. and the other three species. All tRNAs of these 4 species exhibited cloverleaf secondary structures except that the dihydorouridine (DHU) arm of tRNASer(AGN) was absent. The phylogenetic analyses using both Bayesian inference (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) methods all supported that Erotylidae as monophyletic. Erotylinae was monophyletic being the sister group to Xenocelinae. Languriinae was closely related to ‘Erotylinae-Xenocelinae’. Our results recovered Languriinae nested within Erotylidae.

The complete mitochondrial (mt) genome of Nothochrysa sinica Yang (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Nothochrysinae) is reported in this work. It represents the first complete mt genome of the subfamily Nothochrysinae. The whole mt genome is 16,166 bp long and contains 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs), and an AT-rich region. Most PCGs used the typical ATN as initiation codons. The AT-rich region is 1,271 bp long with 90.24% of A þ T. The results show that N. sinica is closely related to N. californica. Chrysopidae was demonstrated monophyletic being the sister group to Hemerobiidae. Within Chrysopidae, the sister-group relationship between Nothochrysinae and Apochrysinae was supported and together being the sister group to Chrysopinae.

Neuropterida is a relatively primitive group of Holometabola. There are about 6500 extant species. Many species of this group are natural enemies and can prey on a variety of agricultural pests. In order to understand the leading research institutions, researchers and research contents, and to predict the future research directions of Neuropterida, the Web of Science core database, from January 1995 to September 2021, was searched with the theme of “Neuropterida or Neuroptera or Megaloptera or Raphidioptera or Lacewing”. The results showed that the United States and China published relatively more publications than other countries. In addition, researchers from these two countries had more cooperation with other countries. China Agricultural University ranked the highest in the number of publications and centrality in this field. In addition, it was found that the early research focused on the biological control of Neuropterida by analyzing the keyword burst, whereas the more recent research focused on the phylogeny of Neuropterida. As the first representative chromosome-level genome of Neuropterida has been published, the future research of Neuropterida will focus on the genomic studies and molecular mechanisms of their morphological characters, behavior, historical evolution and so on.