Molecular taxonomy of Tomares hairstreaks (Lepidoptera, Lycaenidae, Theclinae)

Abstract

Tomares hairstreaks comprise about 10 species distributed from Europe and North Africa to Central Asia. The taxonomy of the genus is hampered by the absence of diagnostic characters by which specimens can be unambiguously assigned to species. Our investigation of morphology and DNA barcode variations within and between Tomares species shows that while well-defined species (T. ballus, T. mauritanicus, T. callimachus, T. desinens and T. fedtschenkoi) diverge, poorly characterized taxa (T. nogelii, T. nesimachus, T. dobrogensis, T. romanovi and T. telemachus) show very little to no differentiation in mtDNA. We reinstate Tomares callimachus spp. hafis (Kollar, 1849) as a valid subspecies (stat. rev.) and propose taxa telemachus Zhdanko, 2000 and uighurica Koçak, Seven & Kemal, 2000 as synonyms of T. romanovi and T. nogelii nogelii respectively (syn. nov). We relegate Polyommatus epiphania Boisduval, 1848, recently revived as a valid subspecies of T. callimachus, back to synonymy under the latter, and reconsider the status of T. nogelii dobrogensis (Caradja, 1895) in the light of new molecular data. We use a nuclear gene (EF-1α) in addition to COI barcodes to reconstruct the phylogeny of the group.

The relationship between distribution of the genera Tomares Rambur, 1840 and the distribution of the larval host plant Astragalus L. (Turkey) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)

“…Host plants of larva: Astragalus leptostachys, A. macropterus, A. physodes, A. vulpinus (Nazari et al, 2020); Astragalus physodes (Korb, 1924); Hedysarum candidum, Astragalus utriger, Astragalus suprapilosus (Bury & Savchuk, 2015); Onobrychis radiata (Weidenhoffer & Vanek, 1977)…”

“…cesa were definied under the species nogelii from Elazıg ˘. Nazari & Ten Hagen (2020) state that T. nogelii and T. nesimachus are different sister species. In the study by Krupitsky et al (2021), the two species were declared to be the same species and offered as synonyms for each other.…”

“…Taxonomy of the genus is controversial since the samples lack diagnostic characteristics by which they can be explicitly assigned to species. Generally, most of the Tomares species show individual and local variability in the size of adult individuals with the base colour intensity and the shade and size of the orange spots, which can sometimes completely disappear, on their wings (Nazari et al 2020). What they all have on their forewings are a red-orange spot with broad black-brown edges and a red-orange spot on the anal area of the black-brown hindwings.…”

“…There are 459 taxa known belonging to 60 sections of genus Astragalus L., which is widely distributed in Turkey with an endemism rate of %51 (Ekici et al 2015;Tunçkol et al 2020;Duman et al 2020). Larvae of Tomares prefer Astragalus, Astracantha, and Onocrychis from leguminosae (Leesmants et al 1986;Koçak, 1983Koçak, , 1987Weidenhoffer & Vanek, 1977;Hesselbarth et al 1995;Tuzov et al 2000;Rákosy & Craioveanu, 2015;Bury & Savchuk, 2015;Seven, 2014;Nazari & Ten Hagen, 2020).…”

“…The taxonomic status of some species remains controversial, due to distinct morphological characters (Weidenhoffer & Bozano, 2007;Nazari & Ten Hagen, 2020) and differences in ecology and distribution (Hesselbarth et al 1995;Van Oorschot & Wagener, 2000). In our study, distribution maps of the Tomares Rbr.…”