Tag Archive for: Lepidoptera

A fascinating recent publication deals with the potential of species delimitation in Lepidoptera via CO1. An international cooperation, with the participation of experts from the Tyrolean State Museums, could show that DNA barcoding is an efficient approach to determine the vast majority of European Lepidoptera.

Every determination is eased by reciprocal monophyly between species. In the absence of the latter experts are in demand to find possible explanations. The publication gives a nice overview on possible reasons for observed para- and polyphyly between species.

Reference:

Mutanen, M. et al. (2016). Species-Level Para- and Polyphyly in DNA Barcode Gene Trees: Strong Operational Bias in European Lepidoptera. Systematic Biology, 65(6), 1024–1040.

Dear barcoding-community,
we would like to point out three papers already published in 2015 concerning Barcoding of Austrian Lepidopterae:

Early in the year P. Huemer and P.D.N Hebert presented a Barcode library containing 1489 species of butterflies from Vorarlberg. 36 species were new to the province of Vorarlberg, while two species were newly recorded for Austria.

Citation: 

Huemer, P., & Hebert, P. D. N. (2015). DNA-Barcoding der Schmetterlinge (Lepidoptera) Vorarlbergs (Österreich) - Erkenntnisse und Rückschlüsse. inatura – Forschung online, 15, 1–36. http://www.inatura.at/forschung-online/ForschOn_2015_015_0001-0036.pdf Cite

 

A further study revised the taxonomy of the genus Kessleria. An integrative approach, combining morphology and DNA-Barcoding, supported the existence of 29 European species, five of these were newly described.

Citation: 

Huemer, P., & Mutanen, M. (2015). Alpha taxonomy of the genus Kessleria Nowicki, 1864, revisited in light of DNA-barcoding (Lepidoptera, Yponomeutidae). ZooKeys, 503, 89–133. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.503.9590 Cite

 

The third publication presented the new moth species Callisto basistrigella from the south-eastern Alps. The species can be morphologically and genetically differentiated from its sister species C. coffeella. Both species co-occur sympatrically without evidence of admixture.

Citation: 

Kirichenko, N., Huemer, P., Deutsch, H., Triberti, P., Rougerie, R., & Lopez-Vaamonde, C. (2015). Integrative taxonomy reveals a new species of Callisto (Lepidoptera, Gracillariidae) in the Alps. ZooKeys, 473, 157–176. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.473.8543 Cite