Phylogeny of Acridoidea (Orthoptera: Caelifera) based on Complete Mitochondrial Genome Data: Testing Partition Strategies

Authors

James Leavitt, Brigham Young University
Dr. Michael Whiting, Brigham Young University

Keywords

phylogency, acridoidea, genome data, partition strategies

College

Life Sciences

Abstract

The orthopteran superfamily Acridoidea (Orthoptera, Caelifera), which includes grasshoppers and their nearest relatives, is the largest of the orthopteran superfamilies and provides an excellent model for studying the evolution of mitochondrial genomes. Ultimately I was able to reconstruct a phylogeny for Caelifera based on entire mitochondrial genomes (mtgenomes) in order to (1) evaluate the relative effectiveness of various data partitioning strategies within a Maximum Likelihood (ML) framework; (2) evaluate the conservation of anti-codons across the group and elucidate patterns among the start and stop codons of the mitochondrial protein coding genes (MPCGs); and (3) specifically test the monophyly of Acridoidea and hypothesize phylogenetic relationships among the major lineages.

Recommended Citation

Leavitt, James and Whiting, Dr. Michael (2013) "Phylogeny of Acridoidea (Orthoptera: Caelifera) based on Complete Mitochondrial Genome Data: Testing Partition Strategies," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2013: Iss. 1, Article 1122.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2013/iss1/1122