Historical Biogeography of the enigmatic Chyphotid wasps (Hymenoptera: Chyphotidae)

The aculeate family Chyphotidae (Hymenoptera) is comprised of two subfamilies, Chyphotinae and Typhoctinae. These subfamilies have different life histories and geographical ranges. Chyphotinae is strictly nocturnal with a distribution restricted to the Nearctic region ranging from Southern Canada to Northern Mexico with the majority of species occurring in the southwestern United States. In contrast, Typhoctinae is strictly diurnal with a larger distribution ranging from the United States Southwest to Northern South America with a few genera being found in Southern South America as far south as Chile and Argentina. The species of this family, although being so widely distributed, are rare and poorly understood. We investigate the past geological events that shaped the species’ current distributions and impacted the phylogeographic patterns seen today by generating the first phylogeny for the family using a Bayesian analysis of mitochondrial data (COI) and nuclear data (opsin). That phylogeny was used to determine that Chyphotidae is a monophyletic family and the subgenera of Chyphotinae do constitute a valid division. The phylogeny was also used to determine the age of the family to be around 96 mya suggesting that the lineage is much older than similar wasp families. Lastly, through an ancestral reconstruction analysis, we were able to determine the family’s center of origin was in North America with subsequent dispersal to South America by the diurnal species.