Phylogenetic analysis of four dung beetle species of neotropical genus Oxyternon (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) based on 28S and COI partial regions

Oxysternon is a neotropical genus consists of 11 species, distributed between the north of the Tropic of Capricorn and east of the Andes. Were evaluated the monophyly of 4 species of Oxysternon using partial sequences of 28S rRNA genes and Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI). Sequences were aligned under the criteria GENEIOUS (Geneious software, 6.1.2 version). Topology was constructed showing phylogenetic relationships using the model of genetic distance of Jukes-Cantor method and the nearest neighbor, Neighbor-Joining to build trees, with 100,000 bootstrap replicates. The aligned sequences were subjected to parsimony analysis using the program TNT 1.1. The most parsimonious topologies showed a pattern related between O. conspicillatum with O. silenus, relationship sustained with a node bootstrap of 88.2 for the 28S ribosomal marker and 100 for the COI marker. Such groupings confirmed the current taxonomic grouping, shown by internal molecular characteristics, possibly explained by the similar geographic distribution. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.