CompCytogen 14(4):541-547 (2020) COMPARATIVE | *rercwewatopassasinan doi: 10.3897/compcytogen.v | 4.i4.55358 Kas Cytogenetics https://com pcytoge n.pe nsoft.n et International Journal of Plant & Animal Cytogenetics, Karyosystematics, and Molecular Systematics First cytogenetic information on four checkered beetles (Coleoptera, Cleridae) Aulay Yagmur Okutaner' | Kirsehir Ahi Evran University, Department of Anthropology, Kirsehir, Turkey Corresponding author: Auulay Yagmur Okutaner (atilayyagmur@gmail.com) Academic editor: D. Lachowska | Received 11 June 2020 | Accepted 23 September 2020 | Published 27 October 2020 http://zoobank.org/6D959138-CA44-48F C- 9A 9D-4BD68D30BC65 Citation: Okutaner AY (2020) First cytogenetic information on four checkered beetles (Coleoptera, Cleridae). CompCytogen 14(4): 541-547. https://doi.org/10.3897/compcytogen.v14.i4.55358 Abstract The karyotypes of four species of Cleridae (Coleoptera): Trichodes favarius (Illiger, 1802), Trichodes quadriguttatus Adams, 1817, Trichodes reichei (Mulsant et Rey, 1863), and Tilloidea transversalis (Charpentier, 1825) were reported for the first time with this study. The chromosome numbers of these four species were determined as 2n = 18, sex chromosome system Xy,» and all chromosomes were meta- centric (the except y chromosome). Together with this study, the chromosome data of only 17 species are available in this family. It is remarkable that all of them display the same chromosome number and similar karyotypes. This may make the effect of karyotypical features important in interpreting the evolutionary process of Cleridae. Keywords Chromosome, Cleridae, Coleoptera, cytogenetic, Tilloidea, Trichodes Introduction The Cleroidea containing 16 families and including approximately 10,000 taxonomi- cally defined species is an important superfamily of Coleoptera (Gimmel et al. 2019). After Melyridae, Cleridae is the second largest Cleroid family with almost 3700 spe- cies and 350 genera in 13 subfamilies described so far (Opitz 2010; Bulak et al. 2012; Gunter et al. 2013; Gerstmeier 2018). Cleridae are widespread in all continents (ex- Copyright Atilay Y. Okutaner. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 542 Aulay Yagmur Okutaner / CompCytogen 14(4): 541-547 (2020) cept for the Antarctic) and has the highest diversity in the tropics (Gunter et al. 2013). Former analyses of phylogenetic and taxonomic relationships of Cleridae were espe- cially based on morphology (Gerstmeier and Eberle 2011; Opitz 2012; Gunter et al. 2013). Therefore, these relationships were generally determined according to morpho- logical characters with traditional classification systems. The molecular phylogeny of the family is extensively discussed in Gunter et al. (2013). The data given by chromosomal characters may help to understand the evolu- tionary relationships of species or higher taxa. Karyological data from the studies in recent years present important findings of genetic structure, life cycle, ecological char- acteristics, evolution, taxonomy, and phylogeny of insects (Shaarawi and Angus 1991; Gokhman and Kuznetsova 2006). For those reasons, karyotypic features may be refer- able as a taxonomic character in solving taxonomic problems, assessing relationships, and phylogenetic classification. (Dobigny et al. 2004; Gokhman and Kuznetsova 2006; Miao and Hua 2017). Although the Cleroidea have a large representative and wide distribution area, only 18 species (13 Cleridae, 5 Melyridae) of the superfamily have been cytogenetically stud- ied so far. The 13 species of Cleridae in five genera (Enoclerus Gahan, 1910, Priocera Kirby, 1818, 7hanasimus Latreille, 1806, Trichodes Herbst, 1792, and Necrobia Olivier, 1795) display monotypic chromosome number as “2n = 18”, the basic sex chromosome system for Coleoptera as Xy_, and metacentric/submetacentric morphology for all chro- mosomes (Smith and Varela 1978; Schneider et al. 2007; Mendes-Neto et al. 2010). This study was carried out to support cytogenetic data of the family Cleridae. ‘The chromosomal first data belonging to four species, Trichodes favarius (Illiger, 1802), Trichodes quadriguttatus Adams, 1817, Trichodes reichei (Mulsant et Rey, 1863), and Tilloidea transversalis (Charpentier, 1825) were given in this study. Material and methods The localities of collected adult specimens areas follows: 16 Trichodes favarius (Iliger, 1802): Hidirbey village of Samandag county in Hatay province, 36°8'19"N, 35°58'49"W; 13 7. quadriguttatus Adams, 1817: Gdksun county in Kahramanmaras province 37°59'50"N, 36°31'50"W; 8 T reichei: Siddikli town in Kirsehir province 39°7'55"N, 33°54'57"W and 14 Tilloidea transversalis (Charpentier, 1825): Kesikkoprii town in Kirsehir province 38°57'39"N, 34°11'48"W (Leg: A.Y. Okutaner). The specimens were identified by Hii- seyin Ozdikmen and were stored in Zoology Lab of Kirsehir Ahi Evran University. Living beetles were transferred to the laboratory. The gonads and midguts were dis- sected and isolated from abdominal contents with the aid of a stereomicroscope micro- scope. Ihe chromosomal preparation procedure was performed according to the meth- od described by Rozek (1994) with partial modifications. The chromosomal prepara- tion procedure in this study was based on the method described by Rozek (1994) with some modifications. The tissues were treated 15-30 min at room temperature with a hypotonic solution containing 1% sodium citrate and 0.005% w/v colchicine. Tissue Cytogenetic information of Cleridae 543 samples were transferred to cryotubes including 3:1 ethanol: acetic acid solution and stored in the freezer. Each treated sample was placed on a clean slide and disintegrated lightly. With the subsequent addition of the acetic acid: distilled water (1:1) solution, another slide was firmly covered over this slide. These slides were immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen and uncoupled to be stained in 4% Giemsa solution. The chromosomes of females were obtained only from Trichodes favarius. Meiotic chromosome sets of all species were obtained from testis tissues. The chromosome sets fixed on the slides were photographed at 100X magnification with Olympus BX53F microscope equipped with a camera. Chromosome measurements were calculated in terms of um using the “ImageJ” program with the “levan” plug-in. The chromosome measurements were made from different meiosis metaphase plates of each species and the ideograms were formed with the average for these measurements. Results and discussion The number of the diploid chromosome complement was determined as 2n = 18 and the sex chromosome system as Xy_ for each species: Trichodes favarius, Trichodes quadriguttatus, Trichodes reichei, and Tilloidea transversalis. The males of these four species display n = 8 + Xy, meioformula. Their chromosome sets (autosomes and X chromosomes) consist of metacentric chromosomes except for subtelocentric y chro- mosome. Sex chromosome system (association of Xy_) in meiosis I, and the presence of y chromosome in meiosis II were clearly demonstrated (Figs 1, 2). The idiogram shows that the first two chromosome pairs of the species belonging to the genus Trichodes are larger than others and a gradual decrease in size in the karyo- type of Tilloidea transversalis (Fig. 2). In the previous literature, there is cytogenetic information of only 13 checkered beetles (2 subfamilies, 5 genera). Additionally, cytogenetic data of 4 different species were presented for the first time in this study. After all given data, the diploid chromo- some numbers have been presented as 2n = 18 and the sex chromosome system as Xy,, of all these 17 Cleridae species. However, four species of Melyridae have observed dif- ferent chromosome numbers and two different sex chromosome systems XO and Xyp, the chromosome morphologies of these four species are metacentric except for the y chromosome as similar to the Cleridae (Table 1). Diploid chromosome number 20 and sex chromosome system Xyp are considered ancestral cytogenetic features of Coleoptera, especially the Polyphaga (Smith and Wirkki 1978). According to the limited number of previous studies, it can be said that 2n = 18 chromosome numbers formed by decreasing the ancestral chromosome set (2n = 20) and Xy_ sex chromosome system belonging to Cleridae family are quite conservative. Although it shows variation in the family Melyridae, the numerical changes of chromosomes may not have an important role in the karyotypic evolution of the family Cleridae. Except for the Y chromosome, the metacentric/submetacentric form of all chromosomes may have created a balance for the karyotype of the species. The 544 Aulay Yagmur Okutaner / CompCytogen 14(4): 541-547 (2020) Figure |. A Female Mitotic metaphase of Trichodes favarius B, C male meiotic metaphases of Trichodes favarius (B meiosis Il; C meiosis I) D, E male meiotic metaphases of Trichodes quadriguttatus (D, E meio- sis II) F male mitotic metaphase of Trichodes quadriguttatus G, H male meiotic metaphases of Trichodes reichei (G meiosis I; H meiosis I) | male mitotic metaphase of Trichodes reichei J, K male meiotic meta- phases of Tilloidea transversalis (J, K meiosis II) L male mitotic metaphase of Tilloidea transversalis. Cytogenetic information of Cleridae 545 Table |. The chromosome data of the Cleridae and Melyridae. Taxa Haploid Citations Formula | Number/Formula Cleridae Thanasimus dubius (Fabricius, 1777) (Clerinae) 8+Xy_ =| Smith (1950) Trichodes nutalli (Kirby, 1818) (Clerinae) 8+Xy_ EEE Smith (1953) Enoclerus nigripes rujiventris (Spinola, 1844) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, 18 Enoclerus sp. (Clerinae) 8+Xy, 18 Smith (1960) Trichodes ornatus (Linsley et MacSwain, 1943) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, 18 Thanasimus formicarius (Linnaeus, 1758) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, 18 Virkki (1960) Trichodes apiarius (Linnaeus, 1758) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, Enoclerus sp. (Clerinae) 8+Xy_ | Virkki (1963) Priocera spinosa (Fabricius, 1801) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, Enoclerus moestus (Klug, 1842) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, 18 Smith and Virkki (1978) Thanasimus undatulus (Say, 1835) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, Necrobia ruficollis (Fabricius, 1775) (Corynetinae) 8+Xy, 18 Yadav and Dange (1989) Necrobia rujipes (De Geer, 1775) (Corynetinae) 8+Xy, Trichodes favarius (Iliger, 1802) (Clerinae) 8+Xy_ This Study Trichodes quadriguttatus Adams, 1817 (Clerinae) 8+Xy_ Trichodes reichei (Mulsant et Rey, 1863) (Clerinae) 8+Xy, 18 Tilloidea transversalis (Charpentier, 1825) (Tillinae) 8+Xy, 18 Melyridae Endeodes collaris LeConte, 1853 (Malachiinae) 18+X0 Smith and Virkki (1978) Collops sp. (Malachiinae) Hoppingiana hudsonica LeConte 1866 (Dasytinae) 12+Xy, Astylus variegatus (Germar, 1824) (Melyrinae) Schneider at all (2007) Astylus antis (Perty, 1830) (Melyrinae) 8+X yy, 16+Xy_ de Oliveira Mendes-Neto et al. (2010) pm Trichodes favarius sine Trichodes quadriguttatus 12,00 10,00 10,00 8,00 sie | | , 6,00 6,00 STi. [TG 2,00 = zn 5 7 0,00 mm | 0,00 = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Xx Yp 1 2 3 4 5 6 ey 8 X Yp BgArm @&PArm BqgArm @&PArm pm Trichodes reichei jm Tilloidea transversalis 8,00 6,00 6,00 S00. : 4,00 4,00 3,00 “TN Alltian 1,00 0,00 5 z 0,00 a ai 2 3 4 5 6 ee 8 xX Yp 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 xX Yp BqArm @PArm Figure 2. Ideograms of the haploid chromosomes. BqgArm @PArm 546 Aulay Yagmur Okutaner / CompCytogen 14(4): 541-547 (2020) absence of acrocentric and telocentric chromosomes can reduce the possibility of new centric fusions such as Robertsonian Translocation (Schubert 2007; Chmatal et al. 2014). 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