Shallow Whole-Genome Sequencing of Aedes japonicus and Aedes koreicus from Italy and an Updated Picture of Their Evolution Based on Mitogenomics and Barcoding

and are two invasive mosquitoes native to East Asia that are quickly establishing in temperate regions of Europe. Both species are vectors of arboviruses, but we currently lack a clear understanding of their evolution. Here, we present new short-read, shallow genome sequencing of and individuals from northern Italy, which we used for downstream phylogenetic and barcode analyses. We explored associated microbial DNA and found high occurrences of bacteria in both samples, but neither nor We then assembled complete mitogenomes and used these data to infer divergence times estimating the split of from in the Oligocene, which was more recent than that previously reported using mitochondrial markers. We recover a younger age for most other nodes within Aedini and other Culicidae. COI barcoding and phylogenetic analyses indicate that , , and the two sampled from Europe should be considered as separate species within a monophyletic species complex. Our studies further clarify the evolution of and and indicate the need to obtain whole-genome data from putative species in order to disentangle their complex patterns of evolution.