Abstract: 【Aims】 To study the molecular phylogenetic relationships of click beetles (Elateridae) based on partial sequences of nuclear 28S ribosomal DNA and comparison with traditional taxonomy results. All these could lay the foundation for the confirmation and further amendment of classification of Elateridae. 【Methods】 The fragments of 28S rDNA gene were sequenced from 10 samples for 9 species (including two geographical populations), of Elateridae, and the sequences for other 32 species of Elateridae were downloaded from GenBank. Molecular phylogenetic trees were reconstructed using software DNA Star Lasergene v 7.1.0 and MEGA4.0 (NJ, MP and ME methods). 【Results】 Sequence analysis showed that there were 477 conserved sites, occupying 56.1% of all sites, and 291 parsim-informative sites, occupying 34.2% of all sites. The average content of G+C was 63.9%, obviously higher than A+T, showing that the base compositions were biased in favor of G+C. Transition value is slightly higher than transversion. The genetic distances within subfamilies ranged from 0.000 to 0.130, which were obviously smaller than that among subfamilies. The molecular phylogenetic trees indicated that the 10 subfamilies analyzed were divided into four clades: cladeⅠincluded Elaterinae and Melanotinae, cladeⅡincluded Pyrophorinae, Agrypninae and Conoderinae, clade Ⅲ included Cardiophorinae and Negastriinae, while clade Ⅳ included Denticollinae, Oxynopterinae and Pityobiinae. All ingrou Ptaxa formed two lineages: lineage 1 (cladeⅠ) and lineage 2 (cladesⅡ+Ⅲ+Ⅳ). Senodonia quadricollis always represented a single lineage, which was separated obviously from other click beetles. 【Conclusions】 This study confirms that traditional taxonomy based on the morphological characteristics of adults and larvae is feasible. At first, the family Elateridae has been proved to be a monophyletic group. The second, the 10 subfamilies of Elateridae can be distinctly divided into four clades. The third, the subfamily Cardiophorinae has been proved to be a monophyletic group, but the other subfamilies were found to be paraphyletic groups, and especially the assignment of Senodonia quadricollis needs further study. The analysis of 28S rDNA gene sequence is proved to be a good way to study the phylogenetic relationships of click beetles.

Key words: Coleoptera, Elateridae, 28S rDNA, molecular phylogenetic tree, phylogeny