Phylogenomic insights into helmet evolution in neotropical treehoppers (Hemiptera: Membracidae): Conserved morphological complexity across five subfamilies

Abstract We utilized genomic data from 2539 nuclear loci (580,110 aligned nucleotides) to investigate phylogenetic relationships among selected treehopper lineages (Hemiptera: Membracidae), with a focus on the complexity of helmet shape. Although our sampling does not yet encompass all subfamilies, the dataset provides dense genomic coverage and a strong phylogenetic signal, resulting in well‐resolved trees with robust support across nodes. Our analyses reveal that similar helmet morphologies are more common among closely related taxa—especially within genera, followed by tribes and, to a lesser extent, subfamilies—suggesting evolutionary conservatism in pronotal complexity. The helmet shape was found to be phylogenetically conserved and statistically significant across all taxonomic levels examined, showing a strong phylogenetic signal. These findings support previously proposed clades and reinforce the monophyly of major lineages (e.g., Centrotinae + Nicomiinae, Membracinae + Darninae + Similiinae), highlighting the power of UCE‐derived nuclear data for resolving relationships within Membracidae. Furthermore, the observed patterns in helmet shape variation also provide evidence for the evolution of pronotal modularity across lineages.