Phylogenetic reconstruction of Cyclidiinae (Lepidoptera: Drepanidae)

• Main Authors: Yen-lin Chen, 陳彥霖
• Other Authors: Shen-Horn Yen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/30758106520136788742

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 生物科學系研究所 === 99 === The subfamily Cyclidiinae is a small macroheteroceran group, which is endemic to the Oriental region and comprising 13 species in 2 genera, e.g. Cyclidia Guenée, 1857 and Mimozethes Warren, 1901. The larvae of the subfamily are specialists on Alangium (Cornaceae) and exhibit conspicuous colouration and gregariousness that may possibly function as aposematism. Historically this subfamily was inconsistently treated as either a separate family from Drepanidae, or lumped as a subordination of Drepanidae. Although both the two recent molecular phylogenetic hypotheses support the monophyly of Drepanidae, the morphological characters supporting the monophyletic status of Cyclidiinae and Drepanidae, however, have never been examined using modern methods. In the present study I investigated the phylogenetic relationships of Cyclidiinae based on morphological characters obtained from all the described species (13 species, including 4 subspecies) and the representatives of Drepaninae, Thyatirinae and Hypsidia. Cimeliidae and Doidae were chosen to be the outgroup taxa. In total 72 adult characters (32 binary, 40 multistate) were obtained and analyzed using Maximum Parsimony based on two character inclusion schemes (including or excluding wing pattern characters). The results showed the monophyletic status of the two Cyclidiinae genera, each subfamily of Drepanidae and the entire Drepanidae were recovered no matter which character inclusion scheme was adopted. The sistergroup of Cyclidiinae is confirmed to be ((Thyatirinae + Hypsidia) + Drepaninae). Although including wing pattern characters in the analysis does not significantly increase phylogenetic resolution within the Cyclidiinae, this scheme has great influence on the internal relationship of the subfamily. Meanwhile the present study reveals that most synapomorphies of Cyclidiinae proposed by previous studies are in fact plesiomorphic.