Phylogeny and feeding trait evolution of the mega‐diverse Gelechioidea (Lepidoptera: Obtectomera): new insight from 19 nuclear genes

Abstract

The Gelechioidea (>18 000 species), one of the largest superfamilies of Lepidoptera, are a major element of terrestrial ecosystems and include important pests and biological model species. Despite much recent progress, our understanding of the classification, phylogeny and evolution of Gelechioidea remains limited. Building on recent molecular studies of this superfamily and a recently revised family/subfamily classification, we provide an independent estimate of among-family relationships, with little overlap in gene sample. We analysed up to five nuclear genes, totalling 6633 bp, for each of 77 gelechioids, plus up to 14 additional genes, for a total of 14 826 bp, in 45 of those taxa and all 19 outgroup taxa. Our maximum-likelihood (ML) analyses, like those of previous authors, strongly support monophyly for most multiply-sampled families and subfamilies, but very weakly support most relationships above the family level. Our tree looks superficially divergent from that of the most recent molecular study of gelechioids, but when the previous tree is re-rooted to accord maximally with ours, the two phylogenies agree entirely on the deepest-level divergences in Gelechioidea, and strongly though incompletely on among-family relationships within the major groups. This concordance between independent studies is evidence that the groupings (or at least the unrooted branching order) are probably accurate, despite the low bootstrap values. After re-rooting, both trees divide the families into three monophyletic groups: a 'Gelechiid Assemblage,' consisting of Gelechiidae and Cosmopterigidae; a 'Scythridid Assemblage,' consisting of Stathmopodidae, Scythrididae, Blastobasidae, Elachistidae, Momphidae, Coleophoridae and Batrachedridae; and a 'Depressariid Assemblage,' consisting of Autostichidae, Xyloryctidae, Lecithoceridae, Oecophoridae, Depressariidae and Lypusidae. Within the largest family, Gelechiidae, our results strongly support the pairing of Anomologinae with Gelechiinae, in accordance with a recent Correspondence: Charles Mitter, Phylogeny of Gelechioidea (Lepidoptera) 113 study of this family. Relationships among the other subfamilies, however, conflict moderately to strongly between studies, leaving the intrafamily phylogeny unsettled. Within the 'Scythridid Assemblage,' both trees support an 'SSB clade' consisting of Blastobasidae + (Scythrididae + Stathmopodidae), strongly resolved only in our results. Coleophoridae + Batrachedridae is supported, albeit weakly, in both trees, and only Momphidae differ in position between studies. Within the 'Depressariid Assemblage,' both trees support an 'AXLO' clade consisting of Autostichidae, Xyloryctidae, Lecithoceridae and Oecophoridae. The monophyly of this clade and relationships therein are supported weakly in previous results but strongly in ours. The recently re-defined family Depressariidae is paraphyletic in our tree, but the evidence against depressariid monophyly is very weak. There is moderate support for a core group of Depressariidae consisting, among the s...

Taxonomic study of Thiotricha Meyrick (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) in Japan, with the description of two new species

“…Sohn et al (2015) treated this species as Thiotricha biformis , without explaining the taxonomic reasons.…”

“…Meyrick (1918) noted that the genus Cnaphostola probably belongs to the Thiotricha group; however, it was not included in the molecular analysis of Karsholt et al (2013). Then, Sohn et al (2015) combined Cnaphostola biformis as Thiotricha biformis without any explanation.…”

Phylogeny of the superfamily Gelechioidea (Lepidoptera: Obtectomera), with an exploratory application on geometric morphometrics

“…It is evident that some of the subfamilies included in their redefined Depressariidae are quite different from the core depressariids based on the morphological characters, and one of which is Oditinae as Wang and Li () explained. The most recent molecular phylogenetic study on Gelechioidea was carried out by Sohn et al (). Aiming to test and verify the conclusions of Heikkilä et al () and Karsholt, Mutanen, Lee, and Kaila (), they sequenced 19 protein‐coding nuclear genes for 16 additional ingroup species based on the former study made by Regier et al (), and then made phylogenetic analyses for 70 ingroup taxa along with 19 outgroup taxa in total.…”

Diversification in the microlepidopteran genusMompha(Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea: Momphidae) is explained more by tissue specificity than host plant family

“…We amplified partial coding sequences from one mitochondrial locus (COI) and five nuclear loci [glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GADPH), elongation factor 1-alpha (EF-1α), dopa decarboxylase (DDC), carbamoyl phosphate synthase domain protein (CAD), and histone 3 (H3)] (S2 Table). These loci have been used to reconstruct species-level relationships in other lepidopteran genera [41–44]. PCR was performed in 10 μL volumes (S1 appendix).…”

“…Two datasets were generated for phylogenetic reconstruction: (1) Mompha collected in North America and sequenced for six genes (MP and TH Mompha ), totaling 178 samples (six-gene dataset); (2) Pooled BOLD COI accessions and COI sequences from the six-gene dataset, totaling 842 individuals (COI dataset). Six outgroup species were selected from two recent gelechioid phylogenetic analyses [42,44]. Five of the six outgroup taxa fall within the scythridid assemblage: Batrachedra praeangusta (Haworth) , Blastodacna hellerella (Duponchel) , Coleophora caelebipennella Zeller , Hieromantis kurokoi Yasuda, and Hypatopa binotella Thunberg and one is from Gelechiidae: Exoteleia dodecella (L.).…”