Taxonomic and molecular studies on family Hydraenidae (Coleoptera: Staphylinoidea) and putatively associated Wolbachia lineages in Egypt

Abstract

The current work combined the taxonomy, phylogeny and molecular biology to evaluate the taxonomic status of Egyptian hydraenids, and its relationship with Wolbachia endosymbionts. - A taxonomic review of 17 species, collected from 15 Egyptian governorates, within three genera and two subfamilies including valid names, diagnoses, synonyms, and distributional maps are provided. Also, keys were constructed for all taxa. The two species; Hydraena arabica Balfour-Browne, 1951, and Ochthebius micans Balfour-Browne, 1951 are recorded from Egypt for the first time. -The CO1 from 100 hydraenid specimens was extracted, and the phylogenetic tree is constructed between the Egyptian and Spanish beetles based on CO1 sequences. The results indicate the absence of Wolbachia endosymbiotic bacteria from the Egyptian hydraenid beetles. By using MLST data we built a phylogenetic tree between all the coleopteran hosts and the Wolbachia, our study revealed that there is no relationship between the Egyptian hydraenid beetles and Wolbachia endosymbiont, and the relationship between Wolbachia and coleopteran hosts is randomly associated and lacks the co-speciation.