Spiny crawlers on trees: phylogeny of Ephemerellidae (Ephemeroptera)

Previous studies have shown inconsistent phylogenetic results for the insect order Ephemeroptera (mayflies) (Ogden et al., 2009a). Ephemerellidae is a family of particular fame in the fly fishing world, due to their extensive presence in trout streams and the popularity in tying flies that mimic various species. Ephemerellidae has recently undergone molecular analysis on select species (Ogden et al., 2009b); the research clearly indicated that 1) current classification is incorrect, and 2) further analysis of the family was needed. Accordingly, we performed the largest DNA analysis of Ephemerellidae to date, a study consisting of over 20 genera. After extracting the DNA, we amplified and sequenced 6 genes: mitochondrial CO1, mitochondrial 12S rDNA, mitochondrial 16S rDNA, nuclear Histone 3, nuclear 18S rDNA, and nuclear 28S rDNA. The sequenced DNA was aligned using Muscle and phylogenetic trees were reconstructed using parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian analyses.