Bruchidius

According to Udayagiri & Wadhi (1989), the kind Bruchidius includes/understands 253 distinct species. However, as underlines it Clarence daN Johnson (1931-2005) in 1989 for the kind Acanthoscelides , this figure is doubtless below reality.

The kind Bruchidius is well represented in the Old world, and one finds species of the kind in Africa, in Asia (including in Japan), in Australia and Europe (Borowiec, 1987). It is absent from New world except for some introduced species accidentally, or deliberately by the man (at ends of biological fight).

Taxonomy - Systematic

standard Species: Bruchidius quinqueguttatus (Olivier, 1795).

At the morphological level, it is difficult to give a single diagnosis for all the species of the kind, because it gathers a big number of species morphologiquement heterogeneous (Borowiec 1987; Kergoat & Silvain 2004). The combinations of states of characters which define the kind are not very discriminating and they often correspond to symplésiomorphies or not very explicit continuous characters (size of the antennas or median lobe for example). Also, for many authors, the kinds Acanthoscelides and Bruchidius are paraphyletic (Johnson, 1981; Borowiec, 1987). This assumption was confirmed recently by molecular analyzes, for the kinds Bruchidius (Kergoat & Silvain 2004; Kergoat and Al 2005a, b) and Acanthoscelides (Kergoat and Al 2005a).

Biology

The species of the kind Bruchidius have a strong level of food specialization. As all the species of Bruchinae it develop in seeds (trophic specialization). They are generally monophages or oligophages, and more than 95% of the species (of which the plant-hosts are known) are associated with plants of the family of the Fabaceae (Kergoat 2004).

Source

Kergoat, G.J. 2004. The kind Bruchidius (Coleoptera, Bruchidae): a model for the study of the evolutionary relations between the insects and the plants. Thesis of Doctorate of the University Paris VI. 192 pp.

References

Borowiec, L. 1987. The generated seed-beetles off (Coleoptera, Bruchidae). Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne 57 : 3-207.
Johnson C.D. 1981. Seed beetle host specificity and the systematics off the Leguminosae. In: Advances in Vegetable Systematics (eds. Polhill, R.M. & Raven, P.H.), pp. 995-1027. Royal The Botanical gardens, Kew.
Johnson, C.D. 1989. Adaptive radiation off Acanthoscelides in seeds: examples off vegetable-bruchid interactions. In: Advances in Vegetable Biology (eds. Stirton, I.C.H. & Zarucchi, J.L.), pp. 747-779. Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Kergoat, G.J., Alvarez, NR., Hossaert-McKey, Mr., Faure, NR. & Silvain, J. - F. 2005a. Obviousness for has parallel evolution in the two largest New and Old World seed-beetle generated (Coleoptera: Bruchidae). Molecular Ecology 14:4003 - 4021.
Kergoat, G.J., Delobel, A., Fédière, G., Ru, B. & Silvain, J. - F. 2005b. Both host-seedling phylogeny and chemistry cuts shaped the African seed-beetle radiation. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 35:602 - 611.
Kergoat, G.J. & Silvain, J. - F. 2004. The kind Bruchidius (Coleoptera: Is Bruchidae) monophyletic? Contributions of the methods of parsimony, maximum of probability and inference bayésienne. Biosystema 22:113 - 125.
Udayagiri S. & Wadhi, S.R. 1989. Catalog off Bruchidae. Memoirs off the American Entomological Institute 45:1 - 301.

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