Morphological, Ecological, and Molecular Divergence of Conogethes pinicolalis from C. punctiferalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)
1
Department of Applied Biology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chonnam National University, Gwangju 61186, Korea
2
Experiment and Analysis Division, Honam Regional Office, Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency, Gunsan 54096, Korea
3
Research Institute for East Asian Environment and Biology, Seoul 05207, Korea
4
Department of Environmental Education, Mokpo National University, Muan 58554, Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Peter H. Adler
Insects 2021, 12(5), 455; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050455
Received: 7 April 2021
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Revised: 10 May 2021
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Accepted: 12 May 2021
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Published: 15 May 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Insect Systematics, Phylogeny and Evolution)
Simple Summary
Currently, two species of Conogethes have been documented in Korea: C. punctiferalis and C. pinicolalis. However, as C. pinicolalis has long been considered as a Pinaceae-feeding type of the yellow peach moth, C. punctiferalis, studies on C. pinicolalis are limited. Therefore, in this study, the divergence of C. pinicolalis from the fruit-feeding moth C. punctiferalis was analyzed in terms of morphology, ecology, and genetics. C. pinicolalis differs from C. punctiferalis in several morphological features. Through field observation, we confirmed that pine trees are the host plants for the first generation of C. pinicolalis larvae. We successfully reared C. pinicolalis larvae to adults by providing them pine needles as a diet. Sequences of mitochondrial COI of these two species substantially diverged by an average of 5.46%. Overall nuclear EF1α-based phylogeny confirmed each species as an independent clade, but a few haplotypes of EF1α indicated incomplete lineage sorting between these two species, suggesting a short divergence time.
Conogethes pinicolalis has long been considered as a Pinaceae-feeding type of the yellow peach moth, C. punctiferalis, in Korea. In this study, the divergence of C. pinicolalis from the fruit-feeding moth C. punctiferalis was analyzed in terms of morphology, ecology, and genetics. C. pinicolalis differs from C. punctiferalis in several morphological features. Through field observation, we confirmed that pine trees are the host plants for the first generation of C. pinicolalis larvae, in contrast to fruit-feeding C. punctiferalis larvae. We successfully reared C. pinicolalis larvae to adults by providing them pine needles as a diet. From a genetic perspective, the sequences of mitochondrial COI of these two species substantially diverged by an average of 5.46%; moreover, phylogenetic analysis clearly assigned each species to an independent clade. On the other hand, nuclear EF1α showed a lower sequence divergence (2.10%) than COI. Overall, EF1α-based phylogenetic analysis confirmed each species as an independent clade, but a few haplotypes of EF1α indicated incomplete lineage sorting between these two species. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that C. pinicolalis is an independent species according to general taxonomic criteria; however, analysis of the EF1α sequence revealed a short divergence time.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Jeong, N.-R.; Kim, M.-J.; Kim, S.-S.; Choi, S.-W.; Kim, I.-S. Morphological, Ecological, and Molecular Divergence of Conogethes pinicolalis from C. punctiferalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae). Insects 2021, 12, 455. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050455
AMA Style
Jeong N-R, Kim M-J, Kim S-S, Choi S-W, Kim I-S. Morphological, Ecological, and Molecular Divergence of Conogethes pinicolalis from C. punctiferalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae). Insects. 2021; 12(5):455. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050455
Chicago/Turabian StyleJeong, Na-Ra, Min-Jee Kim, Sung-Soo Kim, Sei-Woong Choi, and Ik-Soo Kim. 2021. "Morphological, Ecological, and Molecular Divergence of Conogethes pinicolalis from C. punctiferalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)" Insects 12, no. 5: 455. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050455
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