A mitochondrial genome of Micronectidae and implications for its phylogenetic position

Abstract

The mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) has been extensively used to better understand the phylogenetic relationships within the heteropteran infraorder Nepomorpha (Hemiptera), but no mitogenome in Micronectidae has been sequenced to date. Here we describe the first complete mitogenome of Micronecta sahlbergii (Jakovlev, 1881). The mitogenome is 15,005 bp in size, containing 13 typical PCGs, 22 tRNAs, two rRNAs and a control region (CR). All genes are arranged in the same gene order as the most other known heteropteran mitogenome. The phylogenetic relationships based on mitogenomes using Bayesian inference and Maximum likelihood methods showed that Micronecta sahlbergii was sister to Sigara septemlineata, suggesting that Micronecta sahlbergii belongs to Corixoidea. Corixoidea was basal within Nepomorpha. The PCG12 and PCG12RT matrices of BI and ML analyses yielded the consistent topology, respectively. Whereas there was no consistent conclusions in PCG123 and PCG123RT matrices. Saturation tests showed that PCG12 and PCG12RT were free of saturation in evaluation of transition and transversion substitution, while PCG123 and PCG123RT exhibited a plateau revealing saturation of transition suggesting that the third codon positions of PCGs were not suitable for addressing relationships at the superfamily level in Nepomorpha. So our results supported the phylogenetic analysis of PCG12 and PCG12RT in Nepomorpha.

Keywords: Mitochondrial genome; Nepomorpha; Phylogenetic analysis.