The Diversification of the Genus Nesotes (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) in the Canary Islands: Evidence from mtDNA

f u d w 1 m Nesotes Allard encompasses the Iberian peninsula, the slands of Macaronesia (Madeira, the Azores, the Salages, and the Canary Islands), and northwest Africa. he Canary Island Nesotes form one of the more speciose coleopteran genera in the archipelago (represented by 19 species and two subspecies) and inhabit a wide range of habitats. Individual islands in the archipelago support a complex array of habitat types and Nesotes species are associated with many of these. For example, on Tenerife there are species associated with subalpine scrub (N. altivagans), pine forest (N. elliptipennis), laurel forest (N. conformis), shrubland areas (N. transversus), and xeric coastal areas (N. helleri, N. fusculus). For this study, we have collected and sequenced all species in the archipelago except N. tenuipunctatus from Tenerife and N. sabulicola, N. rimosus, and N. marseuli from the eastern islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. Of these taxa, N. marseuli is very rare and the existence of N. rimosus is doubtful because it appears in no collection records since the species was first described from a single individual in 1864. The application of molecular genetic techniques has been extremely useful in determining phylogeographic patterns in a wide range of Canary Island taxa (see Juan et al., 2000 for a review). hrough a broad base of phylogeographic studies, we ope to build a better understanding of patterns of olonization and processes involved in diversification perating in the Canaries and other island systems. his study contributes to the growing knowledge of the hylogeography of Canary Island fauna, particularly n the Coleoptera, by reconstructing the phylogenetic elationships for a beetle genus comprising species ith broad ecological associations. Here we examine a peciose group distributed through diverse habitats