Morphological and molecular taxonomy of <i>Dendrolimus sibiricus</i> Chetverikov stat.rev. and allied lappet moths (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), with description of a new species

Abstract

The populations of the well-known forest pest, Dendrolimus sibiricus Chetverikov, 1908 stat.rev., were sampled in the European foothills of the Ural Mountains, Russia. D. sibiricus is a species distinct from the Japanese taxon D. superans (Butler, 1877). Another taxon from the Southern Urals, taxonomically close to D. pini (Linnaeus), is described here as D. kilmez sp.n. The synthetic female pheromones prepared for D. pini and D. sibiricus attracted equally well all three taxa present, and thus cannot be used to identify these species. The Ural populations of D. sibiricus show differences in external appearance, and as already in the 1840s Eversmann indicated that the species had caused local forest damage, D. sibiricus must be a long-established species in the Ural area. Thus, natural spreading westward of the pest is not to be expected. The five Dendrolimus species of the northern Palaearctic and the male genitalia are illustrated, and the distinguishing characters are listed. Two Matsumura lectotypes are designated.

Genetic diversity among eight Dendrolimus species in Eurasia (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) inferred from mitochondrial COI and COII, and nuclear ITS2 markers

“…The majority of experts distinguish about 30 species in the genus, but only six are widespread in Eurasia [2]. These pests have vast geographic ranges and cause serious damage to forestry in many countries.…”

“…Examples of harmful Dendrolimus species are D. pini (Linnaeus [3]), D. sibiricus (Tschetverikov [4]) and D. punctatus (Walker [5]). They are thought to be the most dangerous and widespread species of this genus [2]. D. punctatus is found in the south-eastern part of Eurasia.…”

“…D. sibiricus range occupy territories from the coasts of the Okhotsk and the Japanese Seas to the Ural Mountains [9]. The pest was detected in western Russia and it can be identified even in Central Europe [2, 10, 11]. The European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) included D. sibiricus in its A2 list of pests recommended for quarantine in member countries [12].…”

“…In 2008, a new species, Dendrolimus kilmez , was described from Kilmez, Central Russia [2]. The new species was morphologically similar to D. pini , and had identical ITS2 nuclear DNA sequences with it, but was very different from D. pini according to a 3′ COI mitochondrial DNA marker.…”

“…A few original studies exist that address genetic diversity and phylogeny only of individual species or groups of closely related species of Dendrolimus [2, 29, 30]. These studies provided information only about populations from western (Europe) and eastern (China) parts of Eurasia; however, a large portion of D. sibiricus and D. pini ranges lies in Siberia [12, 31].…”