The mitochondrial genomes of Statilia maculata and S. nemoralis (Mantidae: Mantinae) with different duplications of trnR genes.

Different mitochondrial gene copies or gene rearrangements are observed in some interspecific mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes), but few in intraspecific mitogenomes. In this study, we sequenced the complete mitogenomes of Statilia maculata and Statilia nemoralis (Mantinae: Mantini). The genetic distance of the whole genomes between these two species was just 0.5%, suggesting that S. maculata and S. nemoralis might be the same species. The mitogenome of S. maculata had five copies of trnR genes (three copies were identical and the other two had some base substitutions), whereas the mitogenome of S. nemoralis had six trnR genes. Five, six or seven tandem copies of trnR genes in S. maculata were found in different localities, respectively. We further sequenced the ND3-ND5 region of fifty individuals hatched from one ootheca (Tianjin) and we found that all individuals had five identical tandem copies of trnR genes and same sequences. Hence, we concluded that different copies of trnR genes can occur in the same species. The mitogenomes of S. maculata and S. nemoralis with other mitogenomes of Mantinae species published were used to construct BI and ML phylogenetic trees. In this study, both BI and ML phylogenetic trees showed that Mantini and Statilia were monophyletic whereas Paramantini was paraphyletic.