Phylogenetic analysis of tetragonula minangkabau and other species using cytochrome b gene

Abstract

Tetragonula a genus in the Meliponini tribe (Apidae), is difficult to identify due to the many cryptic species. As technology develops, molecular taxonomic studies are used to help identify species with limited morphological characteristics. This study presents an analysis of the phylogenetic relationship between several species in the Tetragonula genus based on the sequences of the cytochrome b gene. Maximum parsimony, neighbor joining, maximum likelihood and minimum evolution methods were used to construct phylogenetic trees. The sequence divergence between T. minangkabau collected from Limau Manis and Ulu Gadut is 0.8%, while between T. minangkabau with T. minangkabau forma darek 5.5%. The low sequence divergence indicated that T. minangkabau and T. minangkabau forma darek have a close phylogenetic relationship. The analysis showed that Tetragonula (T. minangkabau, T. minangkabau forma darek, T. laeviceps, T. drescheri and T. fuscobalteata) is monophyletic. A sequence divergence of 5.5% supports the separation of Tetragonula minangkabau and T. minangkabau forma darek.