Razuri Gonzales, Luis2020-09-082020-09-082020-06https://hdl.handle.net/11299/216116University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2020. Major: Entomology. Advisor: Ralph Holzenthal. 1 computer file (PDF); xiv 327 pages.The genus Smicridea McLachlan, 1871 (Hydropsychidae, Trichoptera) currently contains 242 species (Holzenthal & Calor 2017), and is by far, the largest Hydropsychidae genus in the Western Hemisphere. It is distributed from southwestern USA, through Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean Islands, and South America. The genus is divided into two subgenera: the nominotypical Smicridea (137 spp.) and the subgenus Rhyacophylax (105 spp.), which are distinguished based on wing venation characters. Additionally, characters of the male genitalia were used to informally define species group within both subgenera. In Chapter 1, I tested the monophyly of the genus Smicridea, its constituent subgenera, and the species groups using 200 targeted enrichment loci for 26 taxa as well as mitochondrial COI and nuclear ribosomal RNA 28S for 17 additional species to fill the tips of the backbone phylogeny, produced with the targeted enrichment loci. I used maximum likelihood, as implemented in the software IQ-TREE, to analyze the sequence supermatrix as well as the "summary" method ASTRAL-III, which takes into consideration gene tree – species tree discordance. The resulting trees from both types of analysis showed the same relationships. However, support values for some nodes in the ASTRAL-III tree were lower than those in the concatenated tree. Both subgenera in Smicridea were recovered as monophyletic as expected by morphological characters. In the subgenus Rhyacophylax, the species S. andicola, S. ventridenticulata, and S. talamanca, members of the S. peruana species group, were recovered as monophyletic, and S. radula (S. radula species group) and S. unguiculata (unplaced) were related to one another. In the subgenus Smicridea, the S. nigripennis species groups was recovered as monophyletic. Conversely, the S. fasciatella species group was recovered as paraphyletic and composed of at least 5 different clades. The clade composed of the Chilean species of Smicridea (Smicridea) and S. (S.) curvipenis diverged from the rest of the species included in this analysis. The support values for the full dataset tree (i.e., targeted enrichment loci + COI + 28S) were even lower than the support values in the ASTRAL-III for the targeted enrichment loci, and some of the relationships from the targeted enrichment loci tree were not recovered. However, the COI/28S did recover some interesting relationships such as a group of morphologically similar Brazilian species in the subgenus Rhyacophylax or the clustering of S. (R.) appendiculata and S. (R.) murina. In Chapter 2, I presented a species-level revision of the Smicridea (Smicridea) nigripennis species group. In this chapter, I discussed the morphological structure of the male genitalia and produced descriptions and illustrations for each of the species in the group. The nigripennis species group currently contains 74 species and 20 were described as new: Smicridea blahniki new species (Peru), S. chamorroi new species (Nicaragua), S. edithae new species (Peru), S. erwini new species (Peru), S. longissima new species (Venezuela), S. luhmani new species (Peru), S. maesi new species (Nicaragua), S. manabi new species (Ecuador), S. matsigenka new species (Peru), S. migueli new species (Peru), S. nanay new species (Peru), S. napravniki new species (Peru), S. pelleti new species, S. real new species (Peru), S. refulioae new species (Peru), S. riostoumae new species (Ecuador), S. robertsoni new species (Bolivia), S. rossi new species (Peru), S. tiputini new species (Ecuador), and S. uncinata new species (Ecuador). Additionally, I proposed 2 synonymies for species in this group based on morphological evidence: S. martinica and S. karukerae are junior synonyms of S. cariba and S. mincana is a junior synonym of S. nigripennis. In Chapter 3, I examined the morphology of 2 often-confused species in Smicridea (Rhyacophylax), S. lobata (Ulmer, 1909) and S. signata (Banks, 1903), providing more detailed illustrations to aid in their identification. Additionally, I synonymized S. (R.) repula Oláh & Johanson, 2012 with S. lobata, new synonym and I transferred Leptonema islamarga Botosaneanu, 2002 to Smicridea (Rhyacophylax) as a synonym of S. lobata, new combination, new synonym. Finally, I re-examined material of S. lobata and S. signata, identified by Dr. Oliver Flint and housed at the Smithsonian Insitution. As it currently stands, S. lobata is distributed from Mexico to the northern part of South America (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela) while S. signata is distributed in the southwestern tier of US States as well as Mexico and Guatemala.enHydropsychidaeNeotropicsPhylogenomicsSmicrideinaeTaxonomyTrichopteraThesis or Dissertation