Molecular phylogeny of the supertribe Faronitae Reitter (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae)

A phylogenetic analysis of the supertribe Faronitae Reitter based on four different loci of molecular DNA data is presented. The analysis includes 20 taxa with three outgroups, and approximately 4000 basepairs of mitochondrial (COI, 600 bp) and nuclear DNA (18S, 1800 bp; 28S, 950 bp; wingless, 650 bp). Seventeen ingroups of faronite beetles are represented: two New Zealand genera, Exeirarthra Broun and Stenosagola Broun; two Chilean genera, Golasa Raffray and Prosagola Raffray; one shared Australian & New Zealand genus, Sagola Sharp; and one North American, Sonoma Casey. The data were analyzed via parsimony and Bayesian approaches. NONA and WINCLADA were used for parsimony tree searching, and Beast 1.6.1 and ModelTest 3.7 for the Bayesian tree. Both analyses supported the Faronitae as a monophyletic group. However, the genus Sagola was not recovered as monophyletic. The Australian species, Sagola rugicornis Oke was sister to all other faronites. The genus Stenosagola was not also supported as monophyletic in the parsimony and Bayesian trees, and the Chilean genus Prosagola was recovered in the middle of the New Zealand Sagola clade in the Bayesian tree, suggesting paraphyly. However, the relationship between genera and species was ambiguous based on these data. More groups representing diverse phenotypes, and sequence data that from fast evolving genes such as mitochondrial DNA are needed to improve resolution within the supertribe and allow placement within the larger pselaphine phylogenetic framework.