The planthopper family Delphacidae (Insecta: Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea) is among the most economically important insect families worldwide, impacting at least five of the ten major world food crops. Despite this importance, and numerous studies of delphacid biology, behavior, and ecology, planthopper phylogeny is essentially unknown. Two untested phylogenetic hypotheses based on morphology have been advanced (Asche 1985, 1990; Emeljanov 1996), but these theorize only relationships at the subfamily level. Virtually nothing is known of phylogenetic relationships among delphacid genera; of particular importance is the total lack of phylogenetic knowledge within the tribe Delphacini, which includes approximately 80% of the genera and 60% of the species in Delphacidae. We present the early results of an ambitious phylogenetic investigation of Delphacidae of the world, based on morphology and DNA nucleotide sequence data from EF-1a, wingless, 18S rDNA, and 28S rDNA.
Species 1: Hemiptera Delphacidae (planthoppers)
Keywords: molecular phylogenetics, combined data
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