Systematics Of The Tribe Platyopini In China (coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

The tribe Platyopini is the small taxa which distributes in desert and semi-desert areas of Central Asia, known 12 genera with 51 species in the world and 7 genera with 22 species (don't include two doubtful species) in China. The tribe has a special adaptation features on the desert environment and is instructions insects of desertification degree, so the academe is widely concerned about it. Based on the specimens which were kept in the Hebei University Museum and collected by myself recently, based on the evidence which obtained by comparative morphology and the date which obtained by molecular biology, we classify and analyze the tribe, introduced the current study situation of the world about comparative morphology and molecular biology and material and methods we used. Preliminary results obtained from research are as follows:(1) describe morphological characteristics and distribution information of 7 genera with 24 species (include two doubtful species) of tribe Platyopini in China, draw up the keys at all levels, and photograph most of the kinds of morphological characteristics;(2) the research date of comparative morphology shows that phylogenetic relationship of tribe Platyopini in China is: Mantichorula + (Platyope + Przwalska), that is Mantichorula is a monophyletic group, relationship between genus Platyope and genus Przwalska is more close, they compose another branch; the relationship between species of Platyope is very complicated, they have been characterized by repeated differentiation and evolution;(3) the analysis of composition of the world known tribe Platyopini showed that our country has 20 endemic species in 24 known species, accounting for 83.3% of the total, it shows that China is the center of the distribution or origin of the tribe;(4) application of molecular biology tools, we studied out a method which applied for Tenebrionidae insect DNA extraction, obtained 10 species insects in 3 genera cytochrome oxidase II (CoII) and cytochrome B (Cytb) gene sequences; based on molecular systematic studies, applications Clustal X1.81 and MEGA4.0 software to compare sequences homology, calculate the frequencies of nucleotide and the rate of base substitutions, and construct phylogenetic trees, analyze the phtlogenetic relationships and evolutionary relationship of tribe Platyopini in China; the results support the morphological results basically.