Evidência total das espécies de Polistes Latreille, 1802 do novo mundo (Vespidae: Polistinae): uma abordagem filogenética

Abstract

Polistes probably originated in the middle of the Jurassic period and it is estimated that its divergence from the remaining Vespidae occured duraing the Gondwana separation, around 140 million years ago. This genus currently houses 222 valid species and is taxonomically divided in four subgenera, Aphanilopterus in the New World (Nearctic+Neotropic) and the remaining ones in the Old World, Gyrostoma (East Asia and Indo-australian region), Polistella (Australasian region) and Polistes sensu stricto (Eurasia and African continent). A cladistic analysis was carried out in order to reconstruct the relationship of the New World Polistes, as well as testing its monophyly, using 90 of its known species as well as three Vespula species and eleven Old World Polistes species as the outgroup. In this analysis 1 40 morphological characters were proposed, 88 from female external morphology, 10 exclusive from adult male morphology, 22 from male genitalia, 13 from larval morphology and seven from nest architecture. Six molecular regions were also used, COI, 12S, 16S, 28S, EF1 -α e H3. The analysis were carried out under two phylogenetical criteria: parsimony (morphology data only and morphology and molecular data combined) and Bayesian inference (morphology and molecular data combined) using the softwares TNT and MrBayes respectively. In the phylogenetic hipoteses found, the five subgenera proposed by Richards and posteriorly synonymized with Polistes (Aphanilopterus) by Carpenter, was recovered as monophyletic in every analysis, except that of the Bayesian inference of 104 species due to the lack of molecular data for many species. Therefore, we propose the revalidation of the five New World subgenera of Polistes: Polistes (Onerarius) with one species, Polistes (Palisotius) with three species, Polistes (Fuscopolistes) with 13 species, Polistes (Epicnemius) with 24 species and Polistes (Aphanilopterus) with 52 species. Diagnose for each subgenus and an identification key for the species of New World Polistes are also provided as well as their taxonomic history, distribution, and description and illustration for the genitalia of the males of 58 species.