Preliminary molecular analysis of Isoptera taxa from the Australian Northern Territory

Termites are essentially tropical insects, and their overall abundance increases approaching the Equator. Here we present our first molecular data on eight species of five genera ascribed to the families Mastotermitidae, Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae, sampled in the Northern Territory, Australia. We analysed a 657 bp fragment of the 16S mitochondrial gene. Maximum Parsimony and Maximum Likelihood dendrograms, rooted on Mastotermes darwiniensis, show that the Rhinotermitidae family, with the genus Coptotermes, is basal to the Termitidae family. Inside this cluster, the subfamilies Amitermitinae (genus Microcerotermes) and Nasutitermitinae (genera Nasutitermes and Tumulitermes) are well differentiated. However, the latter cluster is particularly interesting as N. longipennis and N. eucalipti haplotypes are basal to a group embodying N. graveolus and N. triodiae sequences together with T. pastinator haplotypes. Therefore, the Nasutitermes genus does not appear monophyletic, as also demonstrated by the Shimodaira-Hasegawa phylogenetic test. This result well supports previous data obtained through morphological and molecular character analyses.