Mitochondrial phylogenomics and mitogenome organization in the parasitoid wasp family Braconidae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea)

Authors: JASSO-MARTINEZ, JOVANA - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico; QUICKE, DONALD - Chulalongkorn University; BELOKOBYLSKIJ, S. - Russian Academy Of Sciences; SANTOS, BERNARDO - Smithsonian Institute; FERNANDEZ-TRIANA, J. - Canadian National Collection Of Insects & Ottawa Plant Laboratory, Entomology; Kula, Robert; ZALDIVAR-RIVERON, ALEJANDRO - Universidad Nacional Autonoma De Mexico

Submitted to: BMC Evolutionary Biology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/1/2022
Publication Date: 4/12/2022
Citation: Jasso-Martinez, J.M., Quicke, D.L., Belokobylskij, S.A., Santos, B.F., Fernandez-Triana, J., Kula, R.R., Zaldivar-Riveron, A. 2022. Mitochondrial phylogenomics and mitogenome organization in the parasitoid wasp family Braconidae (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonoidea). BMC Evolutionary Biology. 22:46. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-01983-1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-01983-1

Interpretive Summary: Parasitic wasps attack crop and forest pests that cause billions of dollars of damage annually. The wasp family treated in this paper contains natural enemies critical for controlling plant-feeding beetles, flies, caterpillars, and aphids. Discerning evolutionary relationships among species in this family is essential for predicting biological attributes of species that impact agriculture globally. Completely resolved, well supported estimates of evolutionary relationships within the family are requisite for a stable classification, resulting in reliable retrieval of scientific information for included species. A new family tree, based on novel genomic data, is reported in this paper. This paper is useful to scientists conducting research on these wasps, as well as pest management and regulatory personnel.

Technical Abstract: Mitochondrial (mt) nucleotide sequence data has been by far the most common tool employed to investigate evolutionary relationships. While often considered to be more useful for shallow evolutionary scales, mt genomes have been increasingly shown also to contain valuable phylogenetic information about deep relationships. Further, mt genome organization provides another important source of phylogenetic information and gene reorganizations which are known to be relatively frequent within the insect order Hymenoptera. Here we used a dense taxon sampling comprising 148 mt genomes (132 newly generated) collectively representing members of most of the currently recognised subfamilies of the parasitoid wasp family Braconidae, which is one of the largest radiations of hymenopterans. We employed this data to investigate the evolutionary relationships within the family and to assess the phylogenetically informativeness of previously known and newly discovered mt gene rearrangements. Most of the subfamilial relationships and composition obtained were similar to those recovered in a previous molecular phylogenetic study, such as the restoration of Trachypetinae as a non-cyclostome braconid subfamily, as well as the recognition of Apozygidae and Proteropinae as a valid family and subfamily, respectively. We confirmed and detected phylogenetic signal in previously known and novel mt gene rearrangements, respectively, with the latter showing phylogenetic utility among tribes within the cyclostome subfamilies Doryctinae and Rogadinae. Our study corroborates the broad presence of mt gene reorganization within Braconidae, and serves as a basis for further investigation of mt gene rearrangements at different taxonomic scales within the family.