author(s)
Jayashree H and Channaveerappa H

abstract
Proteins and enzymes are the structural units of evolution and serve as a reliable marker to establish phylogenetic relations of grass hoppers, variations in these molecules could be easily resolved on electrophoretic gel. Alpha amylases as well water soluble proteins in this study revealed large variations regard to molecular weight and number. Based on these two features similarity and distance matrix computed and the values obtained are utilized to construct phylogenetic trees. In the phylogenetic trees the species Atractomorpha crenulata ramified earlier than other pyrgomorphids. All the six pyrgomorphid grass hoppers showed the monophyletic origin from a common ancestor. Congeneric species Chrotogonus oxypterus and Chrotogonus trachypterus with common generic morphological features showed the diversification from two different nodes of phylogenetic tree. Six species of pyrgomorphid grasshoppers showed a difference in diversification for Alpha amylases, proteins and combination of these two molecules resulted in phylogenetic trees not identical to each other. The formation of nodes, branch length and position of terminal taxa differed in each one these cases. The knowledge of molecular phylogeny of pyrgomorphid grasshoppers is least compared other orthopterans, in this regard the present analysis has helped to understand the phylogenetic relationship among a few species of pyrgomorphid grass hoppers.