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A phylogenetic tree at the species level is still far off for highly diverse insect orders, including the Coleoptera, but the taxonomic breadth of public sequence databases is growing. In addition, new types of data may contribute to increasing taxon coverage, such as metagenomic shotgun sequencing for assembly of mitogenomes from bulk specimen samples. The current study explores the application of these techniques for large-scale efforts to build the tree of Coleoptera. We used shotgun data from 17 different ecological and taxonomic datasets (5 unpublished) to assemble a total of 1942 mitogenome contigs of >3000 bp. These sequences were combined into a single dataset together with all mitochondrial data available at GenBank, in addition to nuclear markers widely used in molecular phylogenetics. The resulting matrix of nearly 16,000 species with two or more loci produced trees (RAxML) showing overall congruence with the Linnaean taxonomy at hierarchical levels from suborders to genera. We tested the role of full-length mitogenomes in stabilizing the tree from GenBank data, as mitogenomes might link terminals with non-overlapping gene representation. However, the mitogenome data were only partly useful in this respect, presumably because of the purely automated approach to assembly and gene delimitation, but improvements in future may be possible by using multiple assemblers and manual curation. In conclusion, the combination of data mining and metagenomic sequencing of bulk samples provided the largest phylogenetic tree of Coleoptera to date, which represents a summary of existing phylogenetic knowledge and a defensible tree of great utility, in particular for studies at the intra-familial level, despite some shortcomings for resolving basal nodes., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Spiniphilus spinicornis belongs to subfamily Philinae of family Vesperidae from cerambycoid assemblage. The first complete mitogenome of Spiniphilus spinicornis was reported. The genome is 15 707 bp in length and contains the typical 37 genes that are arranged in the same order as that of the putative ancestor of beetles. The total base composition of the mitogenome is 30.9% for A, 11.1% for C, 19.3% for G, and 38.6% for T. The genome organization, nucleotide composition, and codon usage do not differ significantly from other martens. The percentage of A + T is 69.5%. The first complete mitogenome of subfamily Philinae could be used in studies of molecular systematics, phylogenetic, and conservation genetics. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Cerambycoidea was monophyly with high support value. Lamiinae, Cerambycinae, and Philinae were monophyly too, respectively.

Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles) and related families in the superfamily Chrysomeloidea are important components of forest ecosystems and play a key role in nutrient cycling and pollination. Using full mitochondrial genomes and dense taxon sampling, the phylogeny of Chrysomeloidea with a focus on Cerambycidae and allied families was explored. We used 151 mitochondrial genomes (75 newly sequenced) covering all families and 29 subfamilies of Chrysomeloidea. Our results reveal that (i) Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles) are sister to all other chrysomeloid families; (ii) Cerambycidae sensu stricto (s. s.) is polyphyletic due to the inclusion of other families that split Cerambycidae into a 'lamiine' clade comprising Lepturinae sensu lato (s. l.) + (Lamiinae + Spondylidinae) and a 'cerambycine' clade comprising Dorcasominae + (Cerambycinae + Prioninae s. l.); (iii) the subfamilies within the two clades of Cerambycidae s. s. were monophyletic, except for the placement of Necydalinae nested in Lepturinae, and the placement of Parandrinae within Prioninae (now considered as tribes Necydalini and Parandrini, respectively); (iv) smaller families were grouped into two major clades: one composed of Disteniidae+Vesperidae and the other composed of Orsodacnidae + (Megalopodidae + Oxypeltidae); (v) relationships among the four major clades were poorly supported but were resolved as ((cerambycines + (Disteniidae + Vesperidae) + Orsodacnidae + (Megalopodidae + Oxypeltidae)) + lamiines. Divergence time analyses estimated that Chrysomeloidea originated ca. 154.1 Mya during the late Jurassic, and most subfamilies of Cerambycidae originated much earlier than subfamilies of Chrysomelidae. The diversification of families within Chrysomeloidea was largely coincident with the radiation of angiosperms during the Early Cretaceous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Idgia oculata Redtenbacher, 1868 was sequenced using Illumina's NovaSeq platform. The mitogenome is a double-stranded circular molecule of 15,805 bp in length with 22 transfer RNA genes, 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes as in other insects. To estimate the taxonomic status of Prionoceridae, total of 9 species from 5 families of Cleroidea were selected as ingroups and 2 species of Coccinellidae as outgroups for phylogenetic analysis based on 13PCGs. The results showed that three major clades were formed, including a 'Melyridae-Cleridae' clade, 'Melyridae-Trogossitidae-Phloiophilidae' clade, and 'Melyridae-Prionoceridae' clade. Prionoceridae showed more closely related to Melyridae than other families. More mitogenome of thorough taxon sampling will be needed to well understand the relationship in Cleroidea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]