Discordance between morphological species identification and mtDNA phylogeny in the flesh fly genus Ravinia (Diptera : Sarcophagidae)

Abstract

In order to better understand the phylogenetic relationships among species in the genus Ravinia Robineau-Desvoidy, 1863, we analysed data from two mitochondrial gene fragments: cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and cytochrome oxidase II (COII). We used Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood methods to infer phylogenetic relationships. Our results indicate that the genera Ravinia and Chaetoravinia, previously synonymised into the genus Ravinia (sensu lato) are each likely to be monophyletic (posterior probability 1; bootstrap support 85%). We found highly supported paraphyletic relationships among species of Ravinia, with relatively deep splits in the phylogeny. This conflict between the morphological species definitions and the mtDNA phylogeny could be indicative of the presence of cryptic species in Ravinia anxia (Walker, 1849), Ravinia floridensis (Aldrich, 1916), Ravinia lherminieri (Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830), and Ravinia querula (Walker, 1849).