Diversification of the Genus Anopheles and a Neotropical Clade from the Late Cretaceous.

ABSTRACT: The Anopheles genus is a member of the Culicidae family and consists of approximately 460 recognized species. The genus is composed of 7 subgenera with diverse geographical distributions. Despite its huge medical importance, a consensus has not been reached on the phylogenetic relationships among Anopheles subgenera. We assembled a comprehensive dataset comprising the COI, COII and 5.8S rRNA genes and used maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference to estimate the phylogeny and divergence times of six out of the seven Anopheles subgenera. Our analysis reveals a monophyletic group composed of the three exclusively Neotropical subgenera, Stethomyia, Kerteszia and Nyssorhynchus, which began to diversify in the Late Cretaceous, at approximately 90 Ma. The inferred age of the last common ancesto

SUBMITTER: Freitas LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4526650 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature