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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #339217
Research Project: Beetle Taxonomy and Systematics Supporting U.S. Agriculture, Arboriculture and Biological Control

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Mitochondrial genomes indicate recent speciation in three Altica flea beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae)

Author
item RUI-E, NIE - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
item JING, WEI - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
item Konstantinov, Alexander - Alex
item WEN-ZHU, LI - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
item XING-KE, YANG - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
item HUAI-JUN, XUE - Chinese Academy Of Sciences

Submitted to: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/13/2019
Publication Date: 8/13/2019
Citation: Rui-E, N., Jing, W., Konstantinov, A.S., Wen-Zhu, L., Xing-Ke, Y., Huai-Jun, X. 2019. Mitochondrial genomes indicate recent speciation in three Altica flea beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 48(5):1-10.

Interpretive Summary: Leaf beetles, especially flea beetles, are among the most important insects for U.S. agriculture. Many are serious pests and feed on crops destroying valuable plants costing millions of dollars annually. Others are important biological control agents that can be used to control unwanted and invasive weeds. This work describes and compares genomes of three species of flea beetles from China. This study will be useful to biological control workers, evolutionary biologists, ecologists, and anyone interested in plant feeding beetles.

Technical Abstract: The “Altica-host plant” system has been suggested as a candidate for ecological speciation study. The reliable relationship reconstruction and divergent time estimation of the closely related flea beetles are pivotal to further in-depth studies. Three mitochondrial genomes of three Altica species: A. cirsicola Ohno, A. fragariae Nakane and A. viridicyanea (Baly) (abbreviated as AC, AF and AV, respectively) were obtained using next-generation sequencing. We found the organization and gene arrangement of the three species were consistent? with the presumed ancestral insect mitogenomes. Among them, the number of all mutant sites between AC and AV is much less than the number between AF and AV or AC and AF across 13 PCGs, and the number of nonsynonymous mutation of 13PCGs between AC and AV is much lower than that AF-AV or AC-AF. The phylogenetic inferences using mitochondrial genomes by Bayesian Inference and Maximum parsimony analysis confirmed the relationship of AF+ (AC+AV). The time-calibrated tree indicated that AC and AV separated in Miocene at around 0.15 Ma (95% CI range 0.0936–0.2090 Ma), AF separated with AC+AV within 1.25 Ma (95% CI range 0.958–1.5388 Ma). The gene selection analysis showed that there is no signature of positive selection on the mitogenome of these three Altica species.