Molecular Phylogeny of the Indo-Australian Glyphodes and its Allied Genera (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Crambidae: Spilomelinae) Inferred from Mitochondrial COI and COII and Nuclear EF-1α Gene Sequences

Abstract

The phylogeny of Indo-Australian Glyphodes (15 species), Talanga (three species), Agrioglypta (four species), and two outgroup, species, Ostrinia nubilalis Hubner, 1825 and Metallarcha aureodiscalis (Hampson, 1918), was inferred from nucleotide sequence variation in the mitochondrial COI (686bp) and COII (687 bp) genes and the nuclear EF-1 alpha (973 bp) gene. While the third codon positions in COI and EF-1a were not saturated with substitutions, those in COII were saturated when sequences were compared between genera. MP analyses based on pooled data of COI, COII, and EF-1 alpha resulted in two MP trees. The strict consensus tree showed that Glyphodes, Talanga, and Agrioglypta were all not monophyletic. Another analysis based on pooled data of all molecular and morphological data resulted in a single tree, in which monophyly of the genus Glyphodes was barely supported (bootstrap value < 50%). Glyphodes species were divided into the same three clades as in an earlier published, morphology-based tree, one of these clades (the so-called Group 3) being supported by a bootstrap value of 100%. In all analyses the genus Agrioglypta was shown to be paraphyletic, since A. eurytusalis (Walker, 1859) fell within the genus Talanga.