A phylogeny of Celithemis inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data and morphology (Anisoptera: Libellulidae)

The dragonfly genus Celithemis consists of 8 spp. some of them common and brightly colored, that are confined largely to eastern North America. Several spp. have been used in behavioral, ecological, and morphological studies, but their intrageneric phylogeny is unclear. In this paper is provided a phylogeny based on morphology and on data from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences of multiple individuals of each species. The genus appears to be monophyletic, with one nested species pair (C. amanda + C. martha) receiving strong bootstrap support by both parsimony or maximum-likelihood criteria as well as high Bayesian posterior probability A second group (C. bertha, C. elisa, C. ornata and C. fasciata) is well-supported in Bayesian analysis but only weakly by parsimony and maximum-likelihood bootstrap values. C. verna and C. eponina are probably basal to both these groups, but their relationship to each other is unclear. All individuals assigned to a species recognized on morphological grounds were recovered as monophyletic. The problematic taxa, C. monomalaena and C. bertha leonora, are shown definitively to be synonyms of C. fasciata and C.bertha, respectively.