Phylogenetic analysis of the leafhopper genus Apogonalia (Insecta: Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) and comments on the biogeography of the Caribbean islands

Abstract

A phylogenetic analysis of the leafhopper genus Apogonalia was conducted based on a matrix of 40 terminal taxa and 147 morphological characters. The analysis yielded 1391 equally most-parsimonious trees, which do not support the monophyly of Apogonalia in the strict consensus. A successive weighting procedure yielded 62 trees in which the genus appeared as a monophyletic group. The strict consensus of these 62 trees is almost entirely dichotomous, showing only two polytomies. The test of phylogenetic integrity was applied for distinct variations of three species: A. germana, A. sanguinipes, and A. histrio. Only for the first species was the conjecture that its variations belong to the same entity corroborated. The best-supported clade within Apogonalia, which has several synapomorphies and high branch support indices, comprises nine Antillean endemic species. This distributional pattern probably was originated by vicariance in the Late Cretaceous, when the Proto-Antillean archipelago was pushed north-eastward by the Caribbean Plate to become the modern Greater Antilles. © 2011 The Linnean Society of London.