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Abstract The beetle series S taphyliniformia exhibits extraordinary taxonomic, ecological and morphological diversity. To gain further insight into staphyliniform relationships and evolution, we reconstructed the phylogeny of S taphyliniformia using DNA sequences from nuclear 28S rDNA and the nuclear protein‐coding gene CAD for 282 species representing all living families and most subfamilies, a representative sample of S carabaeiformia serving as a near outgroup, and three additional beetles as more distant outgroups. Under both B ayesian inference ( BI ) and maximum likelihood inference ( MLI ), the major taxa within S taphyliniformia are each monophyletic: (i) S taphylinoidea, (ii) H ydrophiloidea s.l., and the contained superfamilies (iii) H ydrophiloidea s.s . and (iv) Histeroidea, although S taphylinoidea and H ydrophiloidea s.l. are not strongly supported by MLI bootstrap. Scarabaeiformia is monophyletic under both methods of phylogenetic inference. However, the relative relationships of S taphylinoidea, Hydrophiloidea s.l. and S carabaeiformia differ between BI and MLI : under BI , S taphyliniformia and S carabaeiformia were sister groups; under MLI , H ydrophiloidea s.l. and S carabaeiformia were sister groups and these together were sister to S taphylinoidea. The internal relationships in S carabaeiformia were similar under both methods of phylogenetic inference, with C etoniinae, D ynastinae + R utelinae, H ybosoridae, P assalidae, S carabaeidae and S carabaeinae recovered as monophyla. Histeridae comprised two major clades: (1) A braeinae, T rypanaeine and T rypeticinae; and (2) C hlamydopsinae, D endrophilinae, H aeteriinae, H isterinae, O nthophilinae, S aprininae and T ribalinae. The relationships among early‐divergent H ydrophiloidea differed between BI and MLI , and overall were unresolved or received only moderate to low nodal support. The staphylinoid families A gyrtidae, H ydraenidae and P tiliidae were recovered as monophyletic; the latter two were sister taxa, and S taphylinidae + S ilphidae was also monophyletic. Silphidae was placed within S taphylinidae in close relation to a subset of T achyporinae. Pselaphinae and S cydmaeninae were both recovered within S taphylinidae, in accordance with recent analyses of morphological characters, although not always with recently proposed sister taxa. None of the four major groups of S taphylinidae proposed by L awrence and N ewton (1982) was recovered as monophyletic. Certain highly specialized staphyliniform habits and morphologies, such as abdominal defensive glands and reduced elytra, have arisen in parallel in separate lineages. Further, our analyses support two major transitions to an aquatic lifestyle within S taphyliniformia: once within S taphylinoidea ( H ydraenidae), and once within H ydrophiloidea s.l. ( H ydrophiloidea