Partitioned Bremer support localises significant conflict in bee flies (Diptera : Bombyliidae : Anthracinae)

Abstract

Partitioned Bremer support examination of combined cladistic analyses indicates nodes at which the support from the partitions differs, and also identifies the location of character disagreement generated by the combination of data matrices. Significant character incongruence was found between mtDNA sequence data and adult morphological characters from three tribes of bee flies (Diptera : Bombyliidae : Anthracinae : Villini, Anthracini, Exoprosopini). Partitioned Bremer support quantitatively reveals the location of significant conflict between characters from the different partitions. Examination of several partitioned support measures show which characters contributed to the disagreement at that node. A very high value of increased support at another node occurred upon combination of the data partitions and was also examined using these support measures.