Revision and phylogenetic assessment of the rove beetle genus Pseudohesperus Hayashi, with broad reference to the subtribe Philonthina (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Staphylinini)

Abstract

This paper studies the phylogeny of the rove beetle subtribe Philonthina, to test its hypothetical monophyly and to unravel the evolutionary relationships of the subtribe and its included genus-level taxa, with emphasis on the genus Pseudohesperus and its close-allied relatives. The phylogenetic analyses are based on 105 adult morphological characters and 66 terminal taxa, i.e., all six members of Pseudohesperus, 51 species to represent 29 other genera of the subtribe Philonthina, seven species to represent the other six subtribes of Staphylinini, one species of the tribes Arrowinini, and one of the Platyprosopini. According to the phylogenetic results obtained, the genus Erichsonius should move out from the hitherto-defined subtribe Philonthina and thus the monophyly of this taxon is challenged. The phylogenetic tree suggests that the genera Hesperus and Belonuchus might not be monophyletic, but the monophyly of Pseudohesperus and the sister relationship between it and Bisnius are well supported. The species-level phylogenetic relationships of the genus Pseudohesperus reveal a clear pattern of species diversification that can be correlated well with the species' zoogeographical patterns. The paper also revises the taxonomy of Pseudohesperus and describes five new species from China: Pseudohesperus luteus

Phylogeny of the hyper‐diverse rove beetle subtribe Philonthina with implications for classification of the tribe Staphylinini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae)

“…Selection of characters mainly follows the character system developed by Smetana and Davies (), Solodovnikov and Newton (), Li and Zhou (), Solodovnikov and Schomann (), Brunke and Solodovnikov (, ) and Chani‐Posse (, ,b). A matrix of character states across the 138 terminal taxa as well as character/character‐state descriptions prepared with Mesquite version 3.01 (Maddison and Maddison, ) is provided (see Supporting Information).…”

“…8B–D); 1. fusiform to apically expanded, i.e. narrowed at base but not (or not evenly) converging towards apex (Li and Zhou, : fig. 8A, E, F); 2. subcylindrical ‘rod‐like’, parallel‐sided at most of its length, apex subtruncate (Chani‐Posse, : fig.…”

“…database), has been largely suspected for some time (Smetana, ), especially with respect to the related genera Bisnius and Gabrius . More recently, morphology‐based phylogenies have questioned the monophyly of Hesperus (Schillhammer, , ; Li and Zhou, ) and Belonuchus (Chani‐Posse, , ). Using molecular data, Jeon et al.…”

Extinct and extant rove beetles meet in the matrix: Early Cretaceous fossils shed light on the evolution of a hyperdiverse insect lineage (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Staphylininae)

“…Given the above, we have begun a rigorous phylogenetic study of the rove beetle fossils from the Yixian Formation, with a focus on subfamily Staphylininae. Over the past decade, phylogenetic analyses of extant taxa (Assing, 2000; Solodovnikov and Newton, 2005; Solodovnikov, 2006; Solodovnikov and Schomann, 2009; Chatzimanolis et al., 2010a; Clarke, 2011; Li and Zhou, 2011; Pietrykowska‐Tudruj et al., 2011) have generated detailed character systems and recovered some phylogenetic patterns for this subfamily. They have also posed clear questions that may be answered by fossils.…”

“…Morphology‐ and DNA‐based phylogenetic analyses yield strongly conflicting results regarding its sister‐group relationships within Staphylinini. Solodovnikov and Schomann (2009) and Li and Zhou (2011) placed it nested within the subtribe Philonthina, while Chatzimanolis et al. (2010a) grouped it with the subtribe Tanygnathinina.…”