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Q&A ViewAttendees 3

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

Student Competition 10-Minute Paper

Grad SysEB: Phylogenetics and Phylogenomics

Rediscovering Neobrachinus Erwin: a molecular approach to investigate the evolution of morphology and examine biogeographical patterns.

Monday, November 1, 2021
8:48 AM - 9:00 AM MT
Location: Colorado Convention Center, Meeting Room 205
In-Person Student Competition
The bombardier beetles of the genus Brachinus Weber are notorious for their explosive defensive chemistry; when threatened, they are able to directly aim a 100°C cloud of benzoquinones at an enemy. Despite ongoing research on their defensive chemistry, microbiome, multispecies aggregation behavior, and numerous species descriptions, the group lacks a robust molecular phylogeny. In this study, three loci from both the mitochondrial and nuclear genome (COI, CAD, 28S) were used to reconstruct the phylogeny of the subgenus Neobrachinus to test previous hypotheses of species groups based on morphological characters (Erwin, 1970). The phylogeny was used as a backbone to trace 50 external morphological characters to identify potential apomorphies. In addition, species ranges were estimated from available collections data; these estimates were used in conjunction with the Neobrachinus phylogeny to explore the biogeographic history of this group. The majority of species and species groups proposed by Erwin (1970) were recovered as monophyletic, with a few exceptions. We find that the fumans species group proposed by Erwin (1970) is polyphyletic, with a number of monophyletic clades dispersed throughout the Neobrachinus tree. Furthermore, the phylogeny calls into question the monophyly of a few species of Neobrachinus, and warrant further investigation. Also discussed are new fumans species groups, new apomorphies for species groups of Neobrachinus, and potential biogeographical patterns across the subgenus.