Molecular phylogeny of ladybird beetles (Coccinellidae: Coleoptera) inferred from mitochondrial 28S rDNA sequences

The classification system of the family Coccinellidae is somewhat different by the taxonomists and many attempts have done concerning the phylogenetic relations among the subfamilies from different viewpoints. The present study based on the analyses of 28S rDNA fragments to construct the phylogeny of the family Coccinellidae in order to infer higher-level classification concerning above generic level. The analyses included fifty one species of Ladybird beetles belongs to nine tribes and six subfamilies. 28S rDNA was observed with almost equal mounts of AT and considerable high amounts of GC. Nuclear pair frequencies indicate that, 28S rDNA is having higher number of identical pairs than the substitute sites. Higher amounts of AT transitions could be observed comparative with GT transversions. 28S rDNA sequence divergence was the lowest with ingroup taxa only as well as with outgroups taxa in divergence analyses. The results of 28S r DNA region analyses indicated that the five tribes were supported as being monophyletic, four tribes were supported as nonmonophyletic, and two tribes were only represented by one species, and monophyly was not testable. Species belong to the subfamily Coccinellinae showed two major clades before tribes - Psylloborini and Coccinellini, where requires further studies with additional molecular markers analyzing combining to achieve total evidences. Tribes of subfamily Scymninae were closely associated with tribes of subfamily Coccinellinae. The largest single tribe subfamily Epilachninae was distantly related to the subfamily Coccinellinae being closer to the tribes of Coccidulinae and Ortaliinae. Henosepilachna as well as Epilachna were not monophyletic.