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. 2023 Mar 15;14(3):286.
doi: 10.3390/insects14030286.

Phylogeny and Evolutionary Timescale of Muscidae (Diptera: Calyptratae) Inferred from Mitochondrial Genomes

Xin Li  1 , Xiaodong Cai  1 , Shuangmei Ding  2 , Liang Wang  1 , Wenliang Li  3 , Xiaoyan Liu  4 , Chuntian Zhang  5 , Ding Yang  1
Affiliations

Phylogeny and Evolutionary Timescale of Muscidae (Diptera: Calyptratae) Inferred from Mitochondrial Genomes

Xin Li et al. Insects. .

Abstract

House flies (Muscidae) comprise the most species-rich family of the muscoid grade with over 5000 described species worldwide, and they are abundant in various terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The high number of species, varied appearances, complex feeding habits, and wide distributions have hindered researchers from understanding their phylogeny and evolutionary history. Here, we newly sequenced fifteen mitochondrial genomes and reconstructed the phylogenetic relationships and divergence time among eight subfamilies of Muscidae (Diptera). The best phylogenetic tree, which was inferred by IQ-Tree, recovered the monophyly for seven out of eight subfamilies (except for Mydaeinae). Based on phylogenetic analyses and morphological characteristics, we prefer the subfamily status of Azeliinae and Reinwardtiinae, and separate Stomoxyinae from Muscinae. Genus Helina Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 was synonymized with Phaonia Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830. The divergence time estimation indicated Muscidae originated at 51.59 Ma (early Eocene). Most subfamilies had originated around 41 Ma. We provided a mtgenomic viewpoint on the phylogenetic relationships and divergence time estimation of Muscidae.

Keywords: Azeliinae; Reinwardtiinae; Stomoxyinae; divergence time.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Phylogenetic analysis based on maximum likelihood method by IQ-TREE in Phylosuite software (dataset: C123TR-P2). The dashed branches were resized to better illustrate the tree.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The support values of major nodes among various datasets. These nodes with same support value among datasets were hidden. The node names in x-axis were same as Figure 1. “C123”: all three loci of protein-coding gene; “T”: tRNA gene; “R”: rRNA gene. The loci followed with a “-gb” mark in the dataset name were trimmed by gblocks.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Two different tree topologies across all analyses. Group 1 represents the Azeliinae, Muscinae, and Stomoxyinae. Group 2 represents Atherigoninae and Reinwardtiinae. Group 3 represents Mydaeinae, Phaoniinae, and Coenosiinae.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Estimation of Muscidae divergence time by MCMCTree. Different vertical color stripes represent subfamilies in Muscidae; the red points on nodes are time calibration records.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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