Phylogénie Et Evolution Du Comportement Social Chez Les Blattes ...

An n e x e smorphological study of Donovan et al. (2000) which included large taxon and charactersamples (49 taxa and 196 characters), all other studies were more exploratory since theyconsidered one or two portions of genes and less than 20 taxa. Some recent studies focusedon more restricted groups, in an attempt to reconstruct relationships within the familiesRhinotermitidae or Termitidae (Aanen et al., 2002; Aanen and Eggleton, 2005; Austin et al.,2004; Bitsch and Noirot, 2002; Lo et al., 2004; Miura et al., 1998; Noirot, 2001; Ohkumaet al., 2004), but they were not designed to robustly resolve phylogenetic relationshipsthroughout Isoptera. Therefore, apart from the monophyly of some well-characterized families(Kalotermitidae, Hodotermitidae, Termitidae), phylogenetic relationships within termites arestill highly controversial and need to be investigated.The purpose of the present study is to reconstruct a robust phylogeny for Isoptera byusing multiple molecular markers and a wide range of taxa sampled among the seven widelyrecognized family groups and appropriate outgroups (Orthoptera, Blattaria and Mantodea;Grandcolas and Deleporte, 1996; Grandcolas and D’Haese, 2004; Lo et al., 2000). The basalrelationships within termites, and especially among Kalotermitidae, Hodotermitidae andTermopsidae, constitute the main phylogenetic challenge of this study. This topology is thenused to explore the evolution of social behavior throughout the group, in an attempt to bringnew information about the controversial evolution of the worker caste and of the foragingbehavior (Abe, 1987; Grandcolas and D’Haese, 2002; Higashi et al., 1991; Noirot, 1985a,b;Thompson et al., 2000, 2004; Watson and Sewell, 1985).343