Past, present and future: phylogeny of Odonata

       The first attempts at reconstructing the evolutionary history of Odonata and the relationships between the major clades using Hennig’s methodologies began in the 1990’s. Since that time there has been a great deal of research focused on odonate phylogeny, both at higher and lower levels. Each estimate of phylogeny has increased our knowledge of odonate classification and evolution. They have helped to solidify major portions of the odonate tree of life and provide evolutionary insight into odonate behavioral, morphology and molecular evolution. A brief outline of some of the central relationships yet to be resolved along with some important goals in odonate phylogeny is presented. A synopsis of the past data and their capacity for resolving a robust phylogeny of odonata are incorporated into an all encompassing phylogenetic estimate for the order. Our data matrix included 10 genes and was >14000 characters when aligned.  It includes >1100 taxa, 295 of the ~600 genera, all superfamilies, families, and nearly all subfamilies are included.  For groups that could be tested for monophyly we recovered ~50% of the zygopteran families and one anisopteran family, all subfamilies and ~17% of all genera as non-monophyletic. Brief outlines of current molecular approaches that can help push odonate phylogeny forward are presented, along with progress toward implementing each approach.