Abstract

The present investigation focused on the morphological and molecular assessment of the genus Anax from the Islamabad Capital Territory of Pakistan. A total of 25 specimens were collected during the survey, which were classified into two species within the genus Anax. The phylogenies of the analysed taxa were constructed using maximum parsimony, Bayesian analysis and maximum likelihood approaches. The sequencing of mitochondrial genes and 16S rRNA data sets uncovered evolutionary associations at both the species of Aeshnidae and their genus levels. The Mean Pairwise Distances (MPD) for every species varied from 0.00 to 84.60%. Differences in evolutionary rates between the two groups, Gamma distribution and Invariant, were noted at 0.07 and 1.20 substitutions per site, respectively. The molecular characterisation of Anax species through a DNA-based approach utilising the 16S dataset revealed shared genetic similarities, with bootstrap values of MLB ranging from 70 to 100%, MPB from 52 to 100%, and BPP between 0.75 and 1%, respectively. The analysis of the integrated (16S) data set yielded trees with significantly enhanced bootstrap support compared to the analyses of each gene individually. The findings demonstrated and verified the taxonomic position of Anax species, based on morphological characters, and further enhanced it through the application of tools of molecular biology, specifically involving the nucleotide sequences utilised in evolutionary lineage analysis.