Electrophoretic Survey of Eastern North American Allonemobius (Orthoptera: Gryllidae): Evolutionary Relationships and the Discovery of Three New Species

Abstract

Cryptic species are common in the singing Orthoptera, and systematists have come to rely heavily on distribution, ecology, life cycle, and especially song characteristics both to recognize species and to work out their evolutionary relationships. Eastern North American ground crickets in the genus Allonemobius have been very well studied in the above manner, and the taxonomy of the group appeared secure. However, electrophoretic evidence presented here indicates that what has been called A. allardi in the past consists of three species and what has been called A. fasciatus consists of two species. The evolutionary history of the eastern North American members of the genus is reconstructed, using three different methods for estimating phylogenetic trees from genetic distance matrices. The two species best suited for speciation studies appear to be A. fasciatus and A. socius.