Mitochondrial phylogeny of pine cone beetles (Scolytinae, Conophthorus) and their affiliation with geographic area and host

Pine cone beetles (Conophthorus spp.) feed and kill immature cones of Pinus species, thereby reducing seed production and seriously impairing reforestation of forest ecosystems. Population variation of Conophthorus reproductive behavior has hampered the development of semiochemical control of these pests. This difficulty is compounded by a lack of taxonomic knowledge and species diagnostic characters. Researchers and managers rely, in part, on host associations and geographic locality for species identifications and these have arguable taxonomic utility. However, host use and/or geographic separation may influence Conophthorus lineage diversification. To improve Conophthorus taxonomy and understand the association of host and geography with lineage diversification, a phylogeny of 43 individuals, including all valid species and a robust sample of C. ponderosae from different hosts, is reconstructed using 785 nucleotides of the 3′-end of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene. Thirty trees were recovered in a parsimony analysis and the strict consensus was well resolved and supported by branch support measures. Conophthorus was monophyletic but mitochondrial polyphyly was uncovered for several species. The data also suggested an underestimation of species diversity. Phylogenetically related Conophthorus lineages were significantly associated with geographic proximity but not with host, as indicated by comparisons of character optimized geographic distributions and host associations against randomized distributions of these attributes on the parsimony tree. These results suggest that geographic separation better explains the mode of Conophthorus lineage diversification than does host specialization. Based on these results, researchers and managers of Conophthorus should consider populations as potentially different evolutionary entities until species boundaries are delineated via a robust phylogenetic revision of Conophthorus.