TY - JOUR JF - Acarologia T1 - Molecular phylogenetic relationships of halacarid mites suggest the reevaluation of traditional subfamily classification VL - 57 IS - 3 SP - 633 EP - 641 PY - 2017 SN - 0044-586X SN - 2107-7207 PB - Les Amis d'Acarologia AU - Meguro, Hiroko AU - Iwasa, Masahiro A. AU - Goka, Koichi AU - Abé, Hiroshi UR - https://doi.org/10.24349/acarologia/20174182 DO - 10.24349/acarologia/20174182 DA - 2017-05-16 ET - 2017-05-16 KW - Halacaridae KW - subfamily KW - DNA sequences KW - taxonomy KW - phylogeny AB - Molecular phylogenetic relationships were examined for marine mites in the subfamilies Halacarinae, Copidognathinae, Rhombognathinae and Halixodinae from the aquatic mite family Halacaridae by using nuclear 18S and 28S ribosomal RNA gene sequences. The analysis revealed incongruences between the clustering obtained in the phylogenetic trees and the current morphological classification in the subfamilies Halacarinae and Rhombognathinae (based on 18S sequences) and in the Rhombognathinae (based on both 28S and combined 18S and 28S sequences). By contrast, the tree clustering was consistent with the morphological taxonomic positions in the Copidognathinae and Halixodinae subfamilies. It can be concluded that molecular phylogenetic analysis challenges the current classifications of Halacarinae and Rhombognathinae subfamilies. Accordingly diagnostic characters for their classification should be reevaluated. ER -