Morphological phylogenetics of the Tenthredinidae (Insecta : Hymenoptera)

Abstract

The Tenthredinoidea is the most diverse superfamily of non-apocritan Hymenoptera. It is also one of the largest herbivorous groups within the order, some species having substantial economic impact. Until very recently, no comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of the superfamily had been undertaken. This paper presents the largest morphological dataset assembled so far for elucidating the phylogeny of the Tenthredinoidea. In total, 129 taxa were scored for 146 characters from the adult head, thorax, wings and ovipositor apparatus. The emphasis of the taxon sample is on Tenthredinidae (104 terminals), which is by far the largest family in the Tenthredinoidea. The results of the cladistic analyses confirm the monophyly of the Tenthredinoidea, the first split being between the Blasticotomidae and the remaining families (Tenthredinoidea s. str., also monophyletic), and the monophyly of all families except Tenthredinidae. The analyses fail to consistently retrieve any of the six currently recognised subfamilies within Tenthredinidae, although core clades of Heterarthrinae, Nematinae, Selandriinae and Tenthredininae are often supported. Diprionidae are placed inside the Nematinae under some weighting conditions. The failure to corroborate the tenthredinid subfamilies might be ascribed to an insufficient character/terminal ratio, but also to problems with the existing classification. Inclusion of characters from the male genitalia and the larval stages as well as molecular data currently being assembled will hopefully lead to a more robust classification of the Tenthredinidae in the future.

Giant sawflies and their kin: morphological phylogeny of Cimbicidae (Hymenoptera)

“…The CAP clade has been retrieved by other morphological analyses (e.g. Vilhelmsen, , ), but not by molecular or combined analyses, which have placed Cimbicidae as sister to Diprionidae (Schulmeister, ; Schmidt & Walter, ; Isaka & Sato, ; Malm & Nyman, ) or a clade including Diprionidae (Heraty et al ., ; Ronquist et al ., ; Klopfstein et al ., ). These studies all have very incomplete sampling of Cimbicidae; Malm & Nyman () which otherwise has the most comprehensive sample of the family (five genera, eight species) did not include any South American cimbicids.…”

“…The monophyly of Cimbicidae has never been contested; indeed, it is well corroborated in the present study, as well as most recent phylogenetic studies with more than one representative of the family included (Schulmeister, ; Ronquist et al ., ; Malm & Nyman, ; Vilhelmsen, ; see, however, Isaka & Sato, ). The antennal club (char.…”

“…The character list (File S1) comprises newly discovered characters and characters compiled from the following sources, sometimes with modifications: Benson (), Heraty et al . (), Vilhelmsen (, –c, , ), Weltz & Vilhelmsen (). Selected character states are illustrated in Figs .…”

The ghost of the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution in the evolution of fern–sawfly associations

“…In the third set, congruence between the evolution of ferns and sawflies was explored by plotting the distribution of pteridophagy and the ferns used across the phylogeny of sawfly families (Malm & Nyman, 2015) and the phylogeny of fern orders . The three pteridophagous clades were also recognized in the phylogenetic hypothesis based on morphological characters only, although this study reported slightly different relationships among the main clades of the Tenthredinidae (Vilhelmsen, 2015).…”

“…In recent years, the improved understanding of the early diversification of angiosperms provided new opportunities to study the "co-diversification" of angiosperms and phytophagous insects (Ehrlich & Raven, 1964;Jermy, 1984;De Vienne et al, 2013;Althoff et al, 2014;Hembry et al, 2014;Suchan & Alvarez, 2015). Increasing attention has been given to the hypothesis that the diversification of phytophagous insects coincided with the rapid rise of angiosperms during the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (KTR) (McKenna et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2013;Donovan et al, 2014;Kergoat et al, 2014;Labandeira, 2014;Isaka & Sato, 2014a, 2014b, 2015. The replacement of "gymnosperm-dominated forests" by "angiosperm-dominated forests" is widely considered to be one of the main factors creating the unequal distribution of herbivorous insects across the phylogeny of plants, one facet of which is the low diversity of exclusively pteridophagous (fern-feeding) insects (Balick et al, 1978;Hendrix, 1980;Ottosson & Anderson, 1983;Jermy, 1984;Cooper-Driver, 1985;Weintraub et al, 1995;Ward et al, 2003).…”