Genome-wide survey of nuclear protein-coding markers for beetle phylogenetics and their application in resolving both deep and shallow-level divergences

Beetles (Coleoptera) are the most diverse and species-rich insect group, representing an impressive explosive radiation in the evolutionary history of insects, and their evolutionary relationships are often difficult to resolve. The amount of “traditional markers” (e.g., mitochondrial genes and nuclear rDNAs) for beetle phylogenetics is small and these markers often lack sufficient signals in resolving relationships for such a rapidly radiating lineage. Here, based on the available genome data of beetles and other related insect species, we performed a genome-wide survey to search nuclear protein-coding (NPC) genes suitable for research on beetle phylogenetics. As a result, we identified 1470 candidate loci, which provided a valuable data resource to the beetle evolutionary research community for NPC marker development. We randomly chose 180 candidate loci from the database to design primers and successfully developed 95 NPC markers which can be PCR amplified from standard genomic DNA e...