Cladistics of a sampling of the world's diversity of whiteflies of the genus Dialeurodes (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae)

The cladistic relationships were examined within a large sample of the world's diversity of Dialeurodes Cockerell. Forty-one species were analyzed, including 27 species placed in Dialeurodes, 1 previously misclassified species, Dialeurodes fici Takahashi stat. rev., 2 undescribed species of Dialeurodes, 3 species of Rusostigma Quaintance & Baker, 4 Kanakarajiella David & Sundararaj, and 2 species of Dialeuronomada Quaintance & Baker, with 2 species of Cockerelliella Sundararaj & David used as outgroups. The analysis found 2,068 equally parsimonious trees of length 183. Several well-defined groups were present in all these trees. The important characters that define these groups are discussed, and the distinctness of these groups from the type species of the genus Dialeurodes is noted.