Phylogenetics of scolopendromorph centipedes: can denser taxon sampling improve an artificial classification?

Abstract

Previous phylogenetic analyses of the centipede order Scolopendromorpha indicated a fundamental division into blind and ocellate clades. These analyses corroborated the monophyly of most families and tribes but suggested that several species-rich, cosmopolitan genera in traditional and current classifications are polyphyletic. Denser taxon sampling is applied to a dataset of 122 morphological characters and sequences for four nuclear and mitochondrial loci. Phylogenetic analyses including 98 species and subspecies of Scolopendromorpha employ parsimony under dynamic and static homology schemes as well as maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference of multiple sequence alignments. The monotypic Australian genera Notiasemus and Kanparka nest within Cormocephalus and Scolopendra, respectively, and the New Caledonian Campylostigmus is likewise a clade within Cormocephalus. New World Scolopendra are more closely related to Hemiscolopendra and Arthrorhabdus than to Scolopendra s.s., which is instead closely allied to Asanada; the tribe Asanadini nests within Scolopendrini for molecular and combined datasets. The generic classification of Otostigmini has a poor fit to phylogenetic relationships, although nodal support within this tribe is weak. New synonymies are proposed for Ectonocryptopinae Shelley & Mercurio, 2005 (= Newportiinae Pocock, 1896), Asanadini Verhoeff, 1907 (= Scolopendrini Leach, 1814), and Kanparka Waldock & Edgecombe, 2012 (= Scolopendra Linnaeus, 1758). Scolopendrid systematics largely depicts incongruence between phylogeny and classification rather than between morphology and molecules.

Barcoding of Central European Cryptops centipedes reveals large interspecific distances with ghost lineages and new species records from Germany and Austria (Chilopoda, Scolopendromorpha)

“…While the phylogeny of the family inside the Scolopendromorpha is still not fully resolved (e.g. Murienne et al 2010; Vahtera et al 2013), the monophyly of the diverse and cosmopolitan genus Cryptops is currently undisputed (Vahtera et al 2012). …”

“…There are only a handful of barcoding and phylogenetic studies applying molecular data of Scolopendromorpha worldwide (Murienne et al 2010; Simaiakis et al 2012; Vahtera et al 2012, 2013; Joshi and Edgecombe 2013; Oeyen et al 2014; Siriwut et al 2015). For Cryptops , there is only a singular molecular study utilizing barcoding genes and it deals with tropical pacific island species (Murienne et al 2011).…”

Exploring phylogenomic relationships within Myriapoda: should high matrix occupancy be the goal?

“…Morphological characters for the set of species for which transcriptomes were available or newly generated were coded, principally drawing on existing datasets. These include characters bearing on myriapod phylogeny (Rota-Stabelli et al 2011), higher level chilopod phylogeny (Edgecombe and Giribet 2004;Murienne et al 2010), diplopod phylogeny (Blanke and Wesener 2014), scutigeromorphs (Edgecombe and Giribet 2006;Koch and Edgecombe 2006), scolopendromorphs (Vahtera et al 2013), and geophilomorphs (Koch and Edgecombe 2012;Bonato et al 2014a). Sources for morphological information used for coding fossil terminals is detailed below ("Sources of coding and dates for fossils").…”

“…1). Of these, Chilopoda is the more extensively analyzed phylogenetically, the relationships within its four diverse orders having been evaluated based on morphology and targeted sequencing of a few markers (e.g., Giribet and Edgecombe 2013;Vahtera et al 2013;Bonato et al 2014a). The interrelationships of the five extant centipede orders had converged on a morphological solution (Edgecombe and Giribet 2004) that differs from the first transcriptomic analysis to sample all five orders (Fernández et al 2014b) in one key respect: morphology unites Craterostigmomorpha (an order composed of two species of the genus Craterostigmus) with the two orders that have strictly epimorphic development, whereas molecules assign the order Lithobiomorpha to that position.…”

Genetic variation of COI gene of the Korean medicinal centipede Scolopendra mutilans Koch, 1878 (Scolopendromorpha: Scolopendridae)

“…, ; Vahtera et al . , ). Use of these data can be helpful to delimit exact taxonomic status on the unexamined Korean population.…”