Is Dorcadionini monophyletic? First phylogeny of the genus Eodorcadion reveals startling relationships in Central Asian flightless lamiines (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)

Abstract

The flightless tribe Dorcadionini is one of the most species-rich and taxonomically challenging groups in the family Cerambycidae. Eodorcadion is one of five genera included in Dorcadionini, and one of three distributed in Central Asia. The current classification of the genus is based on taxonomic works pre-dating the application of cladistic methods. We used molecular data from one mitochondrial and three nuclear markers (COI, CAD, ITS2, and Histone 3) for 70 specimens in 23 species and subspecies, representing all subgenera and most species groups of Eodorcadion to build its first phylogeny. By including some taxa of Central Asian Dorcadion and Lamia textor (type genus of Lamiini and Lamiinae), we assessed the monophyly of the tribe. The results of our analyses are the first to fully support the synonymy of Dorcadionini with Lamiini and confirm the morphology-inferred monophyly of Eodorcadion. Consequently, Lamiini = Dorcadionini syn. nov. Moreover, based on the obtained phylogeny and morphological differences, we diagnosed and subsequently described two new subgenera of Eodorcadion: Altaidorcadion Karpiński subgen. nov. and Arenodorcadion Karpiński subgen. nov., while the currently recognized subgenus Humerodorcadion stat. nov. was elevated to the genus rank. Our phylogeny is remarkably consistent with results previously obtained by other authors that used endophallic morphology.