CiteULike CiteULike
Delicious Delicious
Connotea Connotea

Citation for Study 2043

About Citation title: "Molecular Systematics and Biogeography of Nicrophorus in part ?? the investigator species group (Coleoptera: Silphidae) Using Mixture Model MCMC".
About This study was previously identified under the legacy study ID S2042 (Status: Published).

Citation

Sikes D., Vamosi S., Trumbo S., Ricketts M., & Venables C. 2008. Molecular Systematics and Biogeography of Nicrophorus in part ?? the investigator species group (Coleoptera: Silphidae) Using Mixture Model MCMC. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, null.

Authors

  • Sikes D.
  • Vamosi S.
  • Trumbo S.
  • Ricketts M.
  • Venables C.

Abstract

Burying beetles (Silphidae: Nicrophorus) are well-known for their biparental care and monopolization of small vertebrate carcasses in subterranean crypts. They have been the focus of intense behavioral ecological research since the 1980s yet no thorough phylogenetic estimate for the group exists. The relationships among the species, and the validity of some species, are poorly understood. Here, we infer the relationships and examine species boundaries among 50 individuals representing 15 species, primarily of the investigator species group, using a mixture-model Bayesian analysis. Two mitochondrial genes, COI and COII, were used, providing 2,129 aligned nucleotides (567 parsimony-informative). The Akaike Information Criterion and Bayes Factors were used to select the best fitting model, in addition to Reversible Jump MCMC, which accommodated model uncertainty. A 21 parameter, three partition GTR+G was the final model chosen. Despite a presumed Old World origin for the genus itself, the basal lineages and immediate outgroups of the investigator species group are New World species. Bayesian methods reconstruct the common ancestor of the investigator species group as New World and imply one later transition to the Old World with two return transitions to the New World. Prior hypotheses concerning the questionable validity of four species names, N. praedator, N. confusus, N. encaustus and N. mexicanus were tested. No evidence was found for the validity of the N. investigator synonym N. praedator. We found evidence rejecting the species status of N. confusus (NEW SYNONYM of N. sepultor). Weak evidence was found for the species status of N. encaustus and N. mexicanus, which are tentatively retained as valid. Our results strongly reject a recently published hypothesis that N. interruptus (NEW STATUS as valid species) is a subspecies of N. investigator.

About this resource

  • Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S2043
  • Other versions: Download Reconstructed NEXUS File Nexus Download NeXML File NeXML
  • Show BibTeX reference
  • Show RIS reference