Structural Features and Phylogenetic Relationships Among Larvae of Genera of Gyrophaenine Staphylinids (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae) Abstract Systematics, structure, and phylogenetic rela-tionships of known larvae of genera of the aleo-charine tribe Gyrophaenina were investigated. Larvae representing 6 of 1 3 described genera, in-cluding all Holarctic genera, except Brachida Kr. and Encephalus Kr., were available for study. A great variety of structural features, especially in detailed variations in chaetotaxy, mouthpart structure, and characteristics of the tergal gland and associated structures of abdominal segment VIII, were found to be useful for systematic and phylogenetic comparisons among genera. Distri-bution and variation of these structural charac-teristics among gyrophaenine larvae and imma-tures of other aleocharines are discussed. Larvae of all available genera of the Gyrophaenina are described and characterized, a key is provided for separation, and illustrations of structural features of representative late instar larvae of all available genera are provided. Based on an analysis of transformation series of 34 larval characters, a cladistic analysis of avail-able genera was developed. The Gyrophaenina is shown to be monophyletic, based on 17 derived larval characteristics. Sister group relationships among genera are congruent with most branches of a previously published cladogram of all gyro-phaenine genera, based on adult characteristics. Though presently unresolvable discrepancies in phylogenetic relationships of some genera remain, these do not require revision or rejection of pre-viously developed conclusions of classification or evolution of gyrophaenines based on cladistic analysis of adult features. Comparisons of clado-grams based on the independent character systems of larvae and adults provide a very robust test of previously developed cladograms and subsequent conclusions based on them. Introduction Immatures of the large and diverse staphylinid subfamily Aleocharinae are commonly encoun-tered in a variety of microhabitats. For many of these, their abundance suggests that they may have a significant impact on community structure. However, very little is actually known about the habits of aleocharine larvae, and, indeed, it is rare-ly possible to identify even the most commonly encountered individuals to tribe or genus, much less to species. A part of this difficulty stems from the great diversity of taxa included in the subfam-ily Aleocharinae, a group that Amett (1968) de-scribed as the "poorest known section of the entire order Coleoptera" (p. 283). Because of the diffi-culty of confidently identifying adults of this large and inadequately known group and the fact that a diversity of adults are often found together with larvae in many habitats, accurate association of larvae with adults is commonly impossible and even identification of reared material is sometimes questionable. In addition to the typical taxonomic problems encountered in studying aleocharine larvae, a fur-ther limitation to studies of immatures has been the lack of a consistent reference framework within which to compare structural features among su-perficially similar larvae. This has resulted in many sketchy and inconsistent descriptions of aleochar-ine larvae which cannot provide unambiguous dis-ASHE: STRUCTURE AND PHYLOGENY OF GYROPHAENINA
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