DNA Barcoding and Phylogeny of Acari Species Based on ITS and COI Markers

Figure 4

Evolutionary relationships of Acari taxa based on internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence alignment. Phylogeny inference was performed using Bayesian analysis (in BEAST) of 96 nucleotide sequences, under model for DNA substitution, and under Yule speciation process with only one sequence representing each species. Ambiguous positions with less than 50% site coverage were eliminated, rendering only 3003 positions in the final dataset. Acari are shown to be a monophyletic group, as with COI. This phylogenetic inference shows Oribatida (in yellow) as basal group grouping with Astigmata (in purple), whereas Prostigmata (in green) is split into two subgroups, one formed by two sequences that is basal to Mesostigmata (in orange) and Ixodida (in blue), with the main group of Prostigmata being the sister cluster of Ixodida.