Addition of the 16S ribosomal RNA to an existing molecular data set to help determine higher level relationships within Gelechioidea (Lepidoptera)

Resolving the higher level evolutionary relationship of Gelechioidea based upon morphological characters has been a challenge. The morphological characters used to aid in classification of Gelechioidea may not be homologous structures. The addition of molecular data is required since there are a limited number of morphological characters available to analyze Gelechioidea. This investigation aims to use parsimony to evaluate the robustness of the 16S gene in a phylogenetic analysis, and combine 16S gene with previous molecular and morphological data set to resolve family and subfamily level relationships of Gelechioidea.