Decolonizing Psocopteran Systematics: Holarctic Lineages Cannot Inform Diversity and Evolution in Tropics

Despite tropical psocids comprise ~60% of species diversity within the Psocidae (Insecta, Psocodea), previous studies on the Psocidae phylogeny have poorly sampled tropical species (<40% species in trees). Here we discuss the evolution and systematics of the Psocidae based on the most comprehensive species-level sampling of the Psocidae. We sequenced and inferred the phylogenetic position of 43 previously unsampled Neotropical species from COI, H3, WNT, 18S, 16S, and 12S. Based on our phylogenies we found that Neotropical psocids are generally not closely related to morphologically similar taxa in the Holarctic region. Consequently, the monophyletic status for the major groups within Psocidae (subfamilies and tribes) is recovered only when Holarctic groups are sampled (7-10 of 11 higher-level groups are monophyletic) but violated when Neotropical species are included in the dataset (1 of 11 higher-level groups are monophyletic). Leveraging the largest phylogeny of the Psocidae, our study pinpoints the downfalls of simply extending taxonomic knowledge from lineages of a certain area to inform diversity and evolution of lineages in other regions. HighlightsO_LITropical psocids comprise >60% of the extant family richness C_LIO_LIPrevious phylogenies have undersampled Tropical psocids C_LIO_LIHolarctic and Neotropical species are classified under the same morphological groups C_LIO_LIHolarctic and Neotropical generally correspond to evolutionarily distinct lineages C_LIO_LIPhylogenies based on Holarctic psocids poorly inform evolution in the Neotropics C_LI