Phylogenetic relationships among Bombycidae s.l. (Lepidoptera) based on analyses of complete mitochondrial genomes

Abstract

The family Bombycidae (sensu Minet, 1994) is a diverse group of species belonging to the superfamily Bombycoidea. It is an economically important group of moth species, containing well-known silk-producing insects, as well as many pests of agriculture and forestry. The morphology-based hypothesis of Minet (1994) on the composition of Bombycidae is in conflict with subsequent phylogenetic hypotheses for the superfamily based on nuclear genes. In this paper, the complete mitochondrial genomes of nine species of Bombycidae are presented for the first time. Based on these genomes, four dataset partitions and three gblocks parameter settings, phylogenetic relationships among Bombycidae were reconstructed using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods. Bombycidae was confirmed as a polyphyletic group, with the traditional subfamilies Prismostictinae and Oberthueriinae forming a single well-supported clade that is distant to Bombycinae. The phylogenetic relationships within Bombycoidea were supported as ((((Bombycinae, Sphingidae), Saturniidae), (Prismostictinae, Oberthueriinae)), Eupterotidae).

The complete mitochondrial genome of Rotunda rotundapex (Miyata & Kishida, 1990) (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae)

“…Our trees shows that R. rotundapex is sister to Rondotia, not Bombyx (Figure 1), which is incongruent to previous study using COI and four nuclear markers (Lin et al 2019). It also shows that subfamilies Oberthuriinae and Prismostictinae are far from Bombycinae (Figure 1), agreeing that former subfamilies should be treated under Endromidae (Wang et al 2019). Sphingidae, however, is clustered with Bombycidae s.str not Saturniidae (Figure 1), which is also incongruent to former phylogenomic study (Hamilton et al 2019) with relatively low bootstrap values and posterior priority (Figure 1).…”

“…It also shows that subfamilies Oberthuriinae and Prismostictinae are far from Bombycinae ( Figure 1 ), agreeing that former subfamilies should be treated under Endromidae (Wang et al. 2019 ). Sphingidae, however, is clustered with Bombycidae s.str not Saturniidae ( Figure 1 ), which is also incongruent to former phylogenomic study (Hamilton et al.…”

Phylogenomics resolves major relationships and reveals significant diversification rate shifts in the evolution of silk moths and relatives

“…Historically, the most problematic familial placement in the superfamily has been the Bombycidae sensu stricto. Phylogenetic studies that were based on a handful of gene regions (e.g., [13, 18, 20]), placed this family either as sister to the Saturniidae or to the Sphingidae (reviewed in [19]), albeit without strong support for either. Our study clearly places the Bombycidae as the sister lineage to the Saturniidae + Sphingidae (the ‘SBS’ group – coined by Zwick et al [13]), as seen in trees from the AA and Pr + Fl datasets, but not in the ASTRAL tree (Additional files 7, 8 and 9) – an outcome that mirrors traditional Sanger sequencing studies based on few loci, where individual gene trees can lack the phylogenetic signal of supermatrices.…”

“…Unfortunately, a strong understanding of bombycoid familial relationships has remained largely elusive. For example, Bombycidae have been considered the sister lineage to either Saturniidae or Sphingidae, depending on data types and methodological approaches ([11–18]); but see Breinholt and Kawahara [19], and few studies have included representatives from all the major bombycoid lineages.…”

The complete mitochondrial genome of Hydrelia parvulata (Staudinger, 1897) (Lepidoptera: Geometridae)

“…ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/orffinder/) and MITOS web server (http:// mitos.bioinf.uniLeipzig.de/index.py) (Bernt et al 2013). To construct the phylogenetic tree, the complete mitogenomes of 10 ennomin and larentiin speciesas ingroups and 3 bomb-ycid species (Wang et al 2019) as outgroups were used. The maximum likelihood (ML) method was performed by MEGA 10 and the bootstrap analysis was set as 1000 pseudo-replicates.…”