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Phytophaga
Typical Chrysomeloidea (left) and Curculionoidea (right)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Suborder:	Polyphaga
Infraorder:	Cucujiformia
Clade:	Phytophaga

Phytophaga is a clade of beetles within the infraorder Cucujiformia consisting of the superfamilies Chrysomeloidea and Curculionoidea that are distinctive in the plant-feeding habit combined with the tarsi being pseudotetramerous or cryptopentamerous, where the fourth tarsal segment is typically greatly reduced or hidden by the third tarsal segment. The Cucujoidea are a sister to the Phytophaga. In some older literature the term Phytophaga was applied only to the Chrysomeloidea.

The diversification of species within the Phytophaga is thought to be associated with the speciation within the Angiosperms. The plant-feeding habit may have been a shift from microfungal, spore-feeding (on strobili and cycads) and saprotrophic habits. With nearly 125,000 described species they are the second largest phytophagous lineage of insects after the order Lepidoptera. GH45s are only encoded by the genomes possessed by the Phytophaga beetles. The derived G45s from Phytophaga degrade 3 main substances: amorphous cellulose, xyloglucan and glucomannan. It was also composed of fungal sequences, acquired by gene transfer from fungi.

References

1. Zhang, Shao-Qian; Che, Li-Heng; Li, Yun; Dan Liang; Pang, Hong; Ślipiński, Adam; Zhang, Peng (2018). "Evolutionary history of Coleoptera revealed by extensive sampling of genes and species". Nature Communications. 9 (1): 205. Bibcode:2018NatCo...9..205Z. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02644-4. PMC 5768713. PMID 29335414.
2. Marvaldi, Adriana E.; Duckett, Catherine N.; Kjer, Karl M.; Gillespie, Joseph J. (2009). "Structural alignment of 18S and 28S rDNA sequences provides insights into phylogeny of Phytophaga (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea and Chrysomeloidea)". Zoologica Scripta. 38: 63–77. doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2008.00360.x. hdl:11336/92765. S2CID 84345520.
3. Farrell, B. D. (1998-07-24). ""Inordinate Fondness" Explained: Why Are There So Many Beetles?". Science. 281 (5376): 555–559. doi:10.1126/science.281.5376.555. PMID 9677197.
4. Haddad, Stephanie; McKenna, Duane D. (2016). "Phylogeny and evolution of the superfamily Chrysomeloidea (Coleoptera: Cucujiformia)". Systematic Entomology. 41 (4): 697–716. doi:10.1111/syen.12179. S2CID 87055542.
5. Busch, André; Danchin, Etienne G. J.; Pauchet, Yannick (2019-05-10). "Functional diversification of horizontally acquired glycoside hydrolase family 45 (GH45) proteins in Phytophaga beetles". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 19 (1): 100. doi:10.1186/s12862-019-1429-9. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 6509783. PMID 31077129.

• Insect infraorders
• Cucujiformia