Molecular phylogeny of the family Coccidae (Hemiptera, Coccomorpha), with a discussion of their waxy ovisacs

Abstract

Coccidae is one of the major families of scale insects, with many species considered to be serious agricultural or horticultural pests. However, the phylogenetic relationships among coccid subfamilies, tribes and genera are poorly understood because existing hypotheses are based on morphological characters and cladistic analyses. Here, we present the first molecular phylogeny of the family Coccidae based on DNA fragments of a mitochondrial gene (COI), nuclear ribosomal RNA genes (18S and 28S), and elongation factor‐1α (EF‐1α). We found that some genera (Coccus Linnaeus and Pulvinaria Targioni Tozzetti), tribes (Coccini, Paralecaniini, Pulvinariini and Saissetiini) and subfamilies (Coccinae and Filippiinae) within the family are nonmonophyletic. Formation of a waxy ovisac and the distribution and structures of ventral tubular ducts have been used to define the tribe Pulvinariini morphologically; however, these were found to be homoplastic traits based on ancestral state reconstruction. Accordingly, we propose a new classification of certain groups as follows: (i) the Paralecaniini is raised to subfamily rank, Paralecaniinae stat.n., except that Neosaissetia Tao, Wong & Chang is retained as a member of Coccinae; (ii) Megapulvinaria Yang and Pulvinarisca Borchsenius are transferred from Coccinae to Pulvinariscinae stat.n.; and (iii) Metaceronema Takahashi is transferred from Filippiinae to Pulvinariscinae stat.n. We provide amended diagnoses for the newly proposed subfamilies.

The mitogenome of the scale insect Didesmococcus koreanus Borchsenius, 1955 (Coccoidea: Coccidae)

“…The result showed that the monophyly of Coccoidea was highly supported and Ceroplastes japonicus Green, 1921 was the sister group of S. coffeae. This may imply the Ceroplastinae and Coccinae have a closer relationship related to the Eulecaniinae represented by D. koreanus, consistent with the current result based on multiple molecular markers (Choi and Lee 2020).…”

“…And many coccid species are economically significant insects in agriculture, horticulture, and forestry ( Miller and Davidson 1990 ; Miller et al 2005 ). But understanding of the phylogenetic relationships within this family remains limited because the taxonomy on the Coccidae is based largely on the morphological characters from the female adult (Gullan and Cook 2007 ; Choi and Lee 2020 ). In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Didesmococcus koreanus Borchsenius, 1955 was reported and the phylogenetic relationship was reconstructed combined with other two coccid species and other 17 hemipteran species (Deng et al.…”

Phylogenetic Implications of Mitogenomic Sequences and Gene Rearrangements of Scale Insects (Hemiptera, Coccoidea)

“…Within Coccidae, the topology of ML and the Bayesian tree was largely similar, except for the Aclerdidae nested in Coccidae in the Bayesian tree. The Ceroplastinae represented by C. floridensis and C. japonicus had a closer affinity with Coccinae, represented by P. nigra and S. coffeae in both ML and Bayesian tree, then grouped with Eulecaniinae, represented by D. koreanus , corresponding with the topology (Eulecaniinae + (Coccinae B + Ceroplastinae)) [ 55 ].…”

Pest categorisation of Milviscutulus mangiferae

“…They also describe how to separate the closely related genus Protopulvinaria and include a key to separate all four species assigned to the genus Milviscutulus. Molecular techniques for species identification have also been developed and GenBank contains gene nucleotide sequences for M. mangiferae (Yokogawa and Yahara, 2009;Lin et al, 2013;Gomez-Polo et al, 2017;Choi and Lee, 2019).…”

“…Molecular techniques for species identification have also been developed and GenBank contains gene nucleotide sequences for M. mangiferae (Yokogawa and Yahara, 2009; Lin et al, 2013; Gomez‐Polo et al, 2017; Choi and Lee, 2019).…”