Mahin Chavoshi - Juanita Rodriguez ANU, CSIRO

During recent years, using molecular data for taxonomic questions has proved successful. Pompilids are difficult hymenopteran group that are understudied in Australia. Here we used a combined dataset of Mitochondrial, nuclear and UCE markers to delineate two closely related genera of Heterodontony and Cryptocheilus. We also used DNA data for species delimitation and biogeography reconstruction. The results suggest that Heterodontonyx distribution is mainly limited to Australia whereas Cryptocheilus is distributed in Palearctic, nearctic, Africa and Oriental region. Three new potential species discovered using PTP and bPTP plus BioGeoBEARS analysis suggest that Australian species may have oriental origin.

Pompilid phylogeny