The Mitogenomes and Phylogenetic Relationships of the Tribe Aedini in Culicidae (Diptera)

Aedini, the largest tribe within the Culicidae family, includes a large number of taxonomically complex assemblages. Despite decades of extensive research, their phylogeny remains unresolved owing to conflicting signals in traditional classifications and molecular data. In this study, we sequenced and annotated the mitogenomes sequences of 10 species from Aedini. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the mitogenomes from 52 species, we investigated the key features including gene composition, AT-bias, length variation, codon usage bias, and phylogenetic relationships within the tribe. The findings reveal that the mitogenomic characteristics in Aedini are consistent with those of other species within the Culicidae family. However, the traditional genus Aedes displays a highly complex phylogenetic structure. Several genera, especially Armigeres, Haemagogus, and Heizmannia, are phylogenetically embedded within the traditional Aedes clade and form a closely related sister group, which highlighting the limitations of the traditional classification system. This study verified the rationality of elevating many subgenera or groups to genera rank of traditional Aedes, which better reflects Aedini evolutionary history, and provides a robust dataset for future taxonomic research. However, the relationship of its classification still needs to be further explored by adding more representative species.