Abai, MR

6th International Congress of DipterologyMolecular phylogeny and classification of the familyTephritidae: current status and future perspectiveHan, H.-Y. & K.-E. RoDepartment of Life Science, College of Liberal Arts and sciences, Yonsei University,Gangwon-do 220-710, KoreaThe phylogeny of the family Tephritidae was reconstructed frommitochondrial 12S and 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences using over 60species representing many currently recognized higher taxa within thefamily. Patterns of nucleotide composition and substitution were assessedbased on sequence comparison. The minimum evolution and Bayesiantrees suggested many interesting new phylogenetic relationships includingthe followings: (1) sister group relationships between the subfamilyTephritinae and the tribe Blepharoneurini; (2) possible close relationshipbetween the Palearctic Cephalophysa and Neotropical Blepharoneurini; (3)monophyly of Acanthonevrini plus Phytalmiini; (4) membership of NewWorld genus Alujamyia to the Old World tribe Acanthonevrini; and (5)membership of the little known genus Esacidia to the tribe Carpomyini.Our results, therefore, convincingly suggest that an extensiverearrangement of the higher classification of the Tephritidae is necessary.Since our sampling of taxa heavily relied on the current acceptedclassification, some lineages identified by the present study were severelyunder-sampled and other possible major lineages of the Tephritinae wereprobably not even represented in our dataset. We believe that our resultsprovide baseline information for a more rigorous sampling of additionaltaxa representing all possible major lineages of the family, which isessential for a comprehensive revision of the tribal and subfamilyclassification.Key Words: Diptera, Tephritidae, classification, molecular phylogeny,DNA∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗94