Diversification of the genus Anopheles and a Neotropical clade from the Late Cretaceous

The Anopheles genus is a member of the Culicidae family and consists of approximately 460 recognized species. The genus is composed of 7 subgenera with diverse geographical distributions. Despite its huge medical importance, a consensus has not been reached on the phylogenetic relationships among Anopheles subgenera. We assembled a comprehensive dataset comprising the COI, COII and 5.8S rRNA genes and used maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference to estimate the phylogeny and divergence times of six out of the seven Anopheles subgenera. Our analysis reveals a monophyletic group composed of the three exclusively Neotropical subgenera, Stethomyia, Kerteszia and Nyssorhynchus, which began to diversify in the Late Cretaceous, at approximately 90 Ma. The inferred age of the last common ancestor of the Anopheles genus was ca. 110 Ma. The monophyly of all Anopheles subgenera was supported, although we failed to recover a significant level of statistical support for the monophyly of the Anophe...按蚊属（Anopheles genus）隶属于蚊科（Culicidae），目前已确认的物种约有460种。该属包含7个亚属，各亚属的地理分布各具特征。尽管按蚊属具有极高的医学重要性，但学界迄今尚未就按蚊亚属间的系统发育关系达成共识。本研究构建了涵盖细胞色素c氧化酶亚基I（COI）、细胞色素c氧化酶亚基II（COII）及5.8S核糖体RNA（5.8S rRNA）基因的综合数据集，并采用最大似然法与贝叶斯推断，对7个按蚊亚属中的6个开展系统发育分析与分化时间估算。研究结果显示，仅分布于新热带界的3个亚属——斯泰按蚊亚属（Stethomyia）、柯氏按蚊亚属（Kerteszia）与尼氏按蚊亚属（Nyssorhynchus）——构成一个单系群，该类群于约90 Ma（百万年前）的白垩纪晚期开始分化。研究推断按蚊属的最近共同祖先起源于约110 Ma前。尽管本研究未能为按蚊亚属的单系性获得显著的统计支持度，但所有按蚊亚属的单系性均得到了支持。