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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #426858
Research Project: Systematics of Beetles, Flies, Moths and Wasps with an Emphasis on Agricultural Pests, Invasive Species, Biological Control Agents, and Food Security

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Mitogenome architecture supports the non-monophyly of the cosmopolitan parasitoid wasp subfamily Doryctinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) recovered by nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenomics

Author
item CASTANEDA-OSORIO, RUBEN - Institute Of Biology
item BELOKOBYLSKIJ, S - Russian Academy Of Sciences
item ASSO-MARTINEZ, JOVANA - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico
item SAMACA-SAENZ, ERNESTO - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico
item Kula, Robert
item ZALDIVAR-RIVERON, ALEJANDRO - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico

Submitted to: Invertebrate Systematics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/23/2024
Publication Date: 5/13/2024
Citation: Castaneda-Osorio, R., Belokobylskij, S.A., Asso-Martinez, J.M., Samaca-Saenz, E., Kula, R.R., Zaldivar-Riveron, A. 2024. Mitogenome architecture supports the non-monophyly of the cosmopolitan parasitoid wasp subfamily Doryctinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) recovered by nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenomics. Invertebrate Systematics. 38:IS24029. https://doi.org/10.1071/IS24029.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1071/IS24029

Interpretive Summary: Parasitic wasps attack crop and forest pests that cause billions of dollars of damage annually. The wasp subfamily treated in this paper contains natural enemies critical for controlling plant-feeding insects, as well as seed-feeding and gall-inducing species. Discerning evolutionary relationships among species in this subfamily is essential for predicting biological attributes of species that impact agriculture globally. Completely resolved, well-supported phylogenies are necessary to develop a stable classification for the subfamily, resulting in reliable retrieval of scientific information for included species. A new subfamily tree, based on novel genomic data, is reported in this paper. The evolution of mitochondrial gene organization was assessed. This paper is useful to scientists conducting research on these wasps, as well as pest management and regulatory personnel.

Technical Abstract: Mitochondrial DNA gene organisation is an important source of phylogenetic information in various insect taxa at different evolutionary timescales, though this has barely been tested in a phylogenetic context. The cosmopolitan subfamily Doryctinae is a highly diverse group of braconid wasps mainly represented by ectoparasitoids of xylophagous beetle larvae, though some species attack other insect orders, and few are phytophagous. Previous molecular studies based on Sanger and genome wide [ultraconserved element (UCE) and mitogenome] sequence data have recovered a non-monophyletic Doryctinae, though the relationships involved have always been weakly supported. Here we characterised the mitogenomes and conducted separate phylogenetic analyses based on mitogenome and UCE sequence data of nearly 100 hundred representative doryctine genera to assess the monophyly and higher-level classification of the subfamily. We found a mitogenome pattern of tRNA gene rearrangements that support a non-monophyletic Doryctinae consisting of two separate, non-related clades with strong geographic structure (“New” and “Old-World” clades). This relationship was consistently supported by the mitogenome and UCEs phylogenetic analyses, thus highlighting the utility of the mitogenome gene rearrangements as a valuable source of phylogenetic information at deep evolutionary timescales.