The previous studies for phylogenetic relationships within Elateridae were carried out, but not constructed a reliable evolutionary hypothesis. This study attempted to establish a robust evolutionary hypothesis, focusing on major subfamilies of the family Elateridae sensu stricto, using extensively selected 12 genetic markers, COI, 16S rRNA, 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA and 8 nuclear genes. As the results, phylogenetic analyses for 12 multiple genes constructed robust phylogeny with almost very strongly supported nodal values (>90%) and represented that the previously questioned systematic positions of nine subfamilies are fully resolved, excepting the basal lineage split. Especially, three subfamilies, which were recently reduced into tribal rank, Hypnoidinae, Oxynopterinae, and Denticollinae are monophyletic, respectively, and it is supported the traditional taxonomic schemes that had been treated these three taxa in subfamily rank. Whereas, Elaterinae, Hiopinae, and Melanotinae are clustered to a monophyletic group. Two tribes, Denticollini and Ctenicerini in Denticollinae are paraphyletic, respectively and it needs to reclassify their systematic positions. This study recovering of relationships between subfamilies using 12 gene loci resulted that their phylogenetic relationships are sufficiently and successfully resolved with strong supported nodes and provided more possible interpretations from subfamily to tribal levels than the previous studies.

The effect of an artificial diet on the developmental rate, a life history parameter, was examined for the swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus. Artificial insect diets are an essential component of many insect rearing systems that produce insects for research purposes. Complex agar-gelled diets are generally prepared in large batches and used shortly after preparation because the degradation of perishable diet ingredients, such as vitamins and fatty acids, can adversely affect insect quality (Brewer F D 1984). However, the timing of diet preparation may be inconvenient and large batches wasteful if the unused, excess diet is discarded. This study showed that if the artificial diet was fed during the larval stage, the larval and pupal developmental periods, the percentage of pupation, and the pupal weight generally did not differ significantly among the five artificial diets evaluated. The percentage of pupation varied considerably, with no significant differences among diets except for diet C. A maximum pupation percentage of 83% was observed on diet C. Pellet-type diets were investigated with the aim of developing a more easily prepared diet. The extrusion of the artificial diet under high temperature and pressure may induce desirable chemical and physical changes in the extruded product. The purpose of the present study was to develop an artificial diet for rearing P. xuthus.

Using eight universal primers and new designed 315 species-specific primers, we tried to retrieve COI sequences from 45 dried specimens of 36 butterfly species collected from 1959 to 1980. The eight universal primers were entirely failed in PCR amplification and sequencing of all specimens. In the other hand, the 315 primers, targeting fragments of 71–417 bp, generated various lengths of COI sequences ranged from 444 bp to 658 bp from all specimens. Among 284 primer pairs, 26 primer pairs designed for Limenitis camilla, Argynnis niobe, and Brenthis daphne were success to produce COI sequences of congeneric speices, Limenitis doerriesi, Argynnis nerippe, and Brenthis ino. It suggests that the species-specific primers can be applied for analyzing COI sequences of closely related species. Our study reveals that newly designed species-specific primers will be effective to retrieval of COI sequences of old butterfly specimens.

The Wolbachia bacterium, one of the most prevalent endosymbiotic bacteria, is known to induce reproductive anomalies such as cytoplasmic incompatibility, feminization, male killing and parthenogenesis in various arthropod species. The bacterium is considered to have had huge impacts on hosts' reproductive biology, immunity, evolution, and molecular machineries. Infection surveys on the bacterium have rather been limited to specific taxa that are mainly of economical importance or conducted with randomly collected organisms. Here we investigated infection frequency of Wolbachia in 206 Coleopteran insects collected from Korea. Among them 28 species (13.59%) across families proved to harbor Wolbachia. The phylogenetic trees based on the partial 16s rRNA gene and the partial Wolbachia surface protein (wsp) gene of Wolbachia show that all the Wolbachia strains belong to either Supergroup A or B and Wolbachia evolved independently from its hosts. In addition, the cophylogenetic analysis of the 16s rRNA gene and wsp gene implies that there have been horizontal DNA transfers and recombination events within and between divergent Wolbachia supergroups.