Abai, MR

6th International Congress of DipterologyMitochondrial genome phylogeny of the SchizophoraCaravas, J. (1), M. Walker (1), S. Balasubramanian (2), R. Hanrahan (3), M. Neral (4), A.Beckenbach (5), V. Chaudhary (6) & M. Friedrich (1)(1) Department of Biological Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202,USA(2) Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907,USA(3) Department of Biological Science, Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan 49221, USA(4) Detroit Country Day High School, Beverly Hills, Michigan 48205-4435, USA(5) Department of Biological Science, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C. V6B5K3, Canada(6) Department of Computer Science, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202,USAThe dipteran Tree of Life program is a major collaborative effort to resolvethe phylogeny of true flies by combination of morphological and moleculardata matrices. At its first stage, tier one species comprising representativesfrom all major dipteran lineages are being used to construct a backbonephylogeny of Diptera. Our lab has been selected to perform molecularanalysis of the Schizophora using a data set consisting of completemitochondrial genome sequences. The Schizophora are regarded to be amonophyletic group within the Cyclorrapha, representing approximately44000 known fly species.Fourteen members of the Schizophora have been selected as tier one taxa.At this point, the complete mitochondrial genome coding regions of themajority of representatives of the Calyptratae covering the familiesGlossinidae, Tachinidae, Sarcophagidae, Scathophagidae, Anthomyiidaeand Muscidae have been sequenced. Preliminary results usingconcatenated protein sequence alignments have produced robust treescongruent with current hypotheses of calyptrate evolution. Furthermore,preliminary tree reconstruction results including nematoceran and basalbrachyceran outgroups (Tabanomorpha) suggests that complete mt genomesequences provide resolution throughout the depth of the Dipteran tree.34