The project is focused on understanding the phylogeny and evolutionary patterns of mimicry in the oedionychinid flea beetles. This is a large group of 23 genera, with the phylogenetic relationships not understood. The beetles are diverse, colorful, and involved in numerous mimicry complexes throughout their range. The PIs intend to reconstruct the phylogeny of this group using traditional characters of exoskeleton and male genitalia, as well as internal features, female genitalia, sensilla, and molecular characters. Because this group is distributed among three continents in tropical areas, elucidating the biogeographic patterns will provide a basic framework for understanding the role mimicry may have played in diversification. Analysis of these data, separately and combined, will provide powerful tests of hypotheses of relatedness, mimicry, and the evolution of this ancient assemblage of beetles.
