Dissertation Research: Phylogenetic Analysis of the Dytiscinae (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) as Inferred from Morphological and Molecular Characters

惠勒和米勒的研究生凯利·米勒在昆汀·惠勒博士的指导下，正在研究八角甲亚科甲虫的系统学和自然历史。该项目的结果将是了解甲虫(鞘翅目：甲科)的系统发育，这是一类重要的大型水生捕食者。这些潜水甲虫出现在世界各地的湖泊和池塘中，是蚊子等水生昆虫以及包括蝌蚪和鱼苗等小型脊椎动物在内的各种其他猎物的重要捕食者。该种群的成员具有作为优势捕食者的有趣的生态特性，以及有趣的行为特性，如复杂的交配行为。这个项目将集中于发现这个亚科中较高分类组之间的系统发育关系，包括目前公认的5个部落和大约25个属。它还将包括潜水甲虫其他主要亚科的成员作为外类群分类单元，这将有助于建立整个家族的系统发育图。基于这一分析的分类将是基于明确和全面的系统发育分析的任何一类恐龙的首批分类之一。该项目将基于从成体和未成熟型观察到的形态特征，以及核基因“无翼”和细胞色素-B的线粒体基因的分子序列数据，这些基因来自Dytiscinae和相关的外群分类群内尽可能多的谱系。来自南美和澳大利亚的新收集的材料将增加北美的收藏品和博物馆标本。这些数据将以各种方式进行分析，但最终所有可用数据将被结合起来，以发现该群体进化史的最有说服力的假设。由此产生的亚科系统发育假说将构成修订分类的基础，该分类是稳定的和提供最佳信息的。作为这一项目的结果，生物学家使用动态甲虫回答有关生态、行为、生物地理等问题，将能够根据系统发育标准就合适的研究类群做出明智的决定。反过来，这将为关于进化过程的概括提供更多的洞察。

0073088Wheeler and Miller Graduate student Kelly Miller, under the direction of Dr. Quentin Wheeler, is studying the systematics and natural history of beetles of the subfamily Dytiscinae. The result of this project will be an understanding of the phylogeny ofdytiscine beetles (Coleoptera: family Dytiscidae), an important group of large,aquatic predators. These diving beetles occur in lakes and ponds throughout the world and are important predators of aquatic insects, such as mosquitoes, as well as a variety of other prey items including small vertebrates such as tadpoles and fish fry. Members of the group have interesting ecological properties as dominant predators as well as interesting behavioral properties, such as complex mating behaviors. This project will focus on discovering the phylogenetic relationships between the higher taxonomic groups in this subfamily including the currently recognized five tribes and 25 or so genera. It will also include members of the other major subfamilies of diving beetles as outgroup taxa which will help establish a phylogeny for the entire family. The classification based on this analysis will be one of the first for any group of dytiscids that is based upon an explicit and comprehensive phylogenetic analysis. The project will be based on morphological characters observed from adult and immature forms, and on molecular sequence data for the nuclear gene "wingless" and the mitochondrial gene for cytochrome-B, sampled from as many lineages as possible within Dytiscinae and relevant outgroup taxa. Newly collected material from South America and Australia will augment North American collections and museum specimens. These data will be analyzed in a variety of ways, but eventually all available data will be combined to discover the best-supported hypothesis of the evolutionary history of the group. The resulting phylogenetic hypothesis for the subfamily will form the basis for a revised classification that is stable and optimally informative. As a result of this project, biologists using dytiscine beetles to answer questions about ecology, behavior, biogeography, etc., will be able to make informed decisions about suitable study taxa based on phylogenetic criteria. This will, in turn, provide greater insight into generalizations about the process of evolution.