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The phylogeny of the superfamily Pamphilioidea is reconstructed using morphology and DNA sequence data of living and fossil taxa by employing two phylogenetic methods (maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference). Based on our results, the monophyly of Pamphilioidea and Pamphiliidae are corroborated, whereas two extinct families, Xyelydidae and Praesiricidae, are not monophyletic. Because members of Praesiricidae together with Megalodontes form a monophyletic group, we propose that the paraphyletic Praesiricidae is synonymized under Megalodontesidae (syn. nov.). The origin of Pamphilioidea is hypothesized to be as early as the Early Jurassic. To better understand morphological evolution in the early lineages of Pamphilioidea, ancestral states of the first flagellomere and the first and second abdominal terga are reconstructed on the morphology-based tree. In addition, three new genera (Medilyda, Brevilyda, Strenolyda) with five new species (Medilyda procera, M. distorta, Brevilyda provecta, Strenolyda marginalis and S. retrorsa) are described based on well-preserved xyelydid fossils from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of north-eastern China., (© The Willi Hennig Society 2015.)

A new consensus method for summarizing competing phylogenetic hypotheses, weighted compromise, is described. The method corrects for a bias inherent in majority-rule consensus/compromise trees when the source trees exhibit non-independence due to ambiguity in terminal clades. Suggestions are given for its employment in parsimony analyses and tree resampling strategies such as bootstrapping and jackknifing. An R function is described that can be used with the programming language R to produce the consensus., (© The Willi Hennig Society 2012.)

The first comprehensive analysis of higher-level phylogeny of the order Hymenoptera is presented. The analysis includes representatives of all extant superfamilies, scored for 392 morphological characters, and sequence data for four loci (18S, 28S, COI and EF-1α). Including three outgroup taxa, 111 terminals were analyzed. Relationships within symphytans (sawflies) and Apocrita are mostly resolved. Well supported relationships include: Xyeloidea is monophyletic, Cephoidea is the sister group of Siricoidea + [Xiphydrioidea + (Orussoidea + Apocrita)]; Anaxyelidae is included in the Siricoidea, and together they are the sister group of Xiphydrioidea + (Orussoidea + Apocrita); Orussoidea is the sister group of Apocrita, Apocrita is monophyletic; Evanioidea is monophyletic; Aculeata is the sister group of Evanioidea; Proctotrupomorpha is monophyletic; Ichneumonoidea is the sister group of Proctotrupomorpha; Platygastroidea is sister group to Cynipoidea, and together they are sister group to the remaining Proctotrupomorpha; Proctotrupoidea s. str. is monophyletic; Mymarommatoidea is the sister group of Chalcidoidea; Mymarommatoidea + Chalcidoidea + Diaprioidea is monophyletic. Weakly supported relationships include: Stephanoidea is the sister group of the remaining Apocrita; Diaprioidea is monophyletic; Ceraphronoidea is the sister group of Megalyroidea, which together form the sister group of [Trigonaloidea (Aculeata + Evanioidea)]. Aside from paraphyly of Vespoidea within Aculeata, all currently recognized superfamilies are supported as monophyletic. The diapriid subfamily Ismarinae is raised to family status, Ismaridae stat. nov. © The Will Henning Society 2011., (© The Willi Hennig Society 2011.)

The phylogeny of the Agathidinae (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is investigated based on morphological and sequence data from the D2-3 regions of 28S rDNA. Morphology and molecular data were run simultaneously and separately and the molecular and combined data sets were analyzed using both static, Clustal W, and dynamic, POY, alignments. Both alignments were conducted under a variety of gap costs and results are compared. Sixty-two ingroup exemplars representing 22 genera and six outgroup taxa representing two subfamilies and five genera were included. Numerous taxa at the generic and tribal levels were tested for monophyly and the evolutionary history of several characters is discussed. The tribe Agathidini s.s. is found to be a derived member of the Microdini and the two are synonymized under the older name, Agathidini s.l. Support is substantial for the tribes Cremnoptini and Disophrini and Earinini but equivocal for the Agathidini s.l. At the generic level, Bassus is found to be polyphyletic. Numerous new synonymies and combinations are proposed., (© The Willi Hennig Society 2006.)

The use of majority-rule consensus trees as a means of resolving ambiguity in phylogenetic analyses is investigated. It is shown to be an inappropriate method for this purpose.

A measure is introduced to quantify the reliability of character state transitions and character state stasis (lack of character state change between nodes). The mean value of a character state at an internal node is altered to obtain a measure termed the modified mean. Modified mean values at connecting nodes are employed to determine the support for hypotheses of character state transition/stasis between the nodes. The lowest of the two neighboring modified mean values implied by an hypothesis of character state transition/stasis is used as a direct measure of support for that hypotheses of character state transformation or stasis between the respective nodes., (1999 The Willi Hennig Society.)

Abstract- Modifications of the consistency, retention and rescaled consistency indices are introduced. These apply to particular transformations of a character state rather than all of the transformations of a character. For example, if one observes relatively many losses in a character state over a suite of minimum length trees, a low weight is applied to the transformation to a loss; however, these observations infer nothing on the probability of the character state being gained independently. If the same character state shows few or no convergent gains on the suite of minimum length cladograms, then gains receive a relatively high weight. Conversely, if for a particular character state, convergent gains are common and losses rare, the transformation to a loss is given a higher weight than the transformation to a gain. For multistate characters, each possible transformation is weighted independently. Three indices are proposed, i.e. the exact consistently index, the exact retention index and the exact rescaled consistency index. The consistency index is modified to deal with characters with unknown entries. The methods outlined not only select (or generate) preferred tree topologies but they also choose character optimizations, even for trees of identical topology.

Abstract- A hypothesis-independent method of weighting cladistir characters, based on character compatibility, is proposed. The method is used in two fashions, to generate cladograms, and to select from multiple minimum length cladograms. To illustrate the techniques, published data on Hoplinema (Coleoptera) are reanalysed. The method is contrasted with other weighting techniques which arc generally found to be hypothesis dependent., (© 1989 The Willi Hennig Society.)