Molecular Systematics of Odonata

Dragonflies and damselflies together compose the order Odonata. Odonates are insectivorous, filling a crucial niche in aquatic communities. When Odonates are present in communities, it\u27s a sign of ecosystem health. Because of their comparatively large size and bright colors, they are often popular insects with the public and can serve as a flagship species in conservation initiatives. Odonate systematics has been greatly debated in the literature over last hundred years, and there are still many unanswered questions to ponder. This study tests paraphyletic families and the deepest nodes of evolutionary divergence within the order Odonata. Sequences accessed from GenBank NCBI were used to build the taxa data set with ribosomal 18S genes. In total, 18S sequences from 56 taxa representing 3 current sub-orders and 29 families were used to construct these phylogenetic analyses. The results of the most parsimonious tree analysis in SeaView shows Epiprocta and Zygoptera as sister groups. The maximum likelihood analysis in SeaView shows the clade of Anisoptera as paraphyletic with four nested clades, but the bootstrap support for that topology hypothesis is low. Furthermore, this study charts the evolution of labial palps with movable hooks onto the resulting tree hypothesis. Insects with movable hooks on their labial palps have access to an increased range of prey due to the change in head morphology. The character coding analysis in Mesquite hypothesizes that the trait of movable labial palps likely arose more than once