Polietina, Schnabl & Dziedzicki, 1911

De Carvalho, Claudio J. B. & Haseyama, Kirstern Lica F., 2018, A new species of Polietina (Diptera: Muscidae) from South America, with an updated phylogeny of the genus and a review of species’ identity in GenBank, Zootaxa 4407 (3), pp. 415-426 : 422

Review of Polietina species’ identity in GenBank

Analyses with COI nucleotide sequences available in GenBank for Polietina species estimated that some species were not reciprocally monophyletic ( Figure 10 ). This led us to suspect that some vouchers associated to GenBank sequences were misidentified. The morphological re-examination of the vouchers confirmed the problem ( Table 2). Though most identifications were correct, one of the vouchers of Polietina prima was actually P. orbitalis , and vouchers from Polietina steini and one from P. orbitalis were actually Cyrtoneuropsis species. The Bayesian inference carried out here estimated sequences from these vouchers in the same lineage as the other Polietina species with 100% posterior probability. In light of this evidence, we think the sequences are actually from Polietina species, but the vouchers were wrongly assigned (e.g., wrong labeling or mixed samples). Furthermore, the voucher from sequence AJ879599 , identified here as Cyrtoneuropsis sp., is in a clade within other Polietina orbitalis specimens. Therefore, we believe the sequence was actually from P. orbitalis , as indicated in the GenBank record. The analysis of COI sequences also indicated that Polietina nigra was paraphyletic, because it included P. prima . This result reinforced the morphological evidence to the synonym proposed here. After this reassignment of the vouchers’ identity, all Polietina species with more than a single sequence were estimated as reciprocally monophyletic.

Figures

FIGURE 10. Molecular phylogenetic hypothesis using Bayesian posterior probabilities of COI sequences (644 bp, model = GTR+G) for nine Polietina specimens and two outgroup taxa with Bayesian posterior probability values. Names in italic are those currently at GenBank; names in bold italic are species identity of vouchers after detailed morphological revision. GenBank accession numbers are provided in parentheses. *Wrongly assigned vouchers.See text for explanation.