Abstract
Dendrolimus houi is one of the most common caterpillars infesting Gymnosperm trees, and widely distributed in several countries in Southeast Asia, and exists soley or coexists with several congeners and some Lasiocampidae species in various forest habitats. However, natural hybrids occasionally occur among some closely related species in the same habitat, and host preference, extreme climate stress, and geographic isolation probably lead to their uncertain taxonomic consensus. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of D. houi was extracted and sequenced by using high-throughput technology, and the mitogenome composition and characteristics were compared and analyzed of these species, then the phylogenetic relationship was constructed using the maximum likelihood method (ML) and the Bayesian method (BI) based on their 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs) dataset, which were combined and made available to download which were combined and made available to download among global Lasiocampidae species data. Mitogenome of D. houi was 15,373 bp in length, with 37 genes, including 13 PCGs, 22 tRNA genes (tRNAs) and 2 rRNA genes (rRNAs). The positions and sequences of genes were consistent with those of most known Lasiocampidae species. The nucleotide composition was highly A+T biased, accounting for ~80% of the whole mitogenome. All start codons of PCGs belonged to typical start codons ATN except for COI which used CGA, and most stop codons ended with standard TAA or TAG, while COI, COII, ND4 ended with incomplete T. Only tRNASer (AGN) lacked DHU arm, while the remainder formed a typical “clover-shaped” secondary structure. For Lasiocampidae species, their complete mitochondrial genomes ranged from 15,281 to 15,570 bp in length, and all first genes started from trnM in the same direction. And base composition was biased toward A and T. Finally, both two methods (ML and BI) separately revealed that the same phylogenetic relationship of D. spp. as ((((D. punctatus + D. tabulaeformis) + D. spectabilis) + D. superans) + (D. kikuchii of Hunan population + D. houi) as in previous research, but results were different in that D. kikuchii from a Yunnan population was included, indicating that different geographical populations of insects have differentiated. And the phylogenetic relationship among Lasiocampidae species was ((((Dendrolimus) + Kunugia) + Euthrix) + Trabala). This provides a better theoretical basis for Lasiocampidae evolution and classification for future research directions.
Highlights
Dendrolimus houi Lajonquiere (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), being one of the most abundant phytophagous caterpillar in southern China and some countries in Southeast Asia, voraciously feeds on about 12 species of coniferous trees, including Cryptomeria fortunei, Pinus yunnanensis, Platycladus orientalis, P. kesiya var.langbianensis and Cupressus funebris, causing thousands hectares of dead or dying forests, and it tends to be continuously spreading rapidly [1]
Different geographical populations of D. houi have different life cycles, host preference and adaptation to local extreme climatic factors [2,3], which might lead to population differentiation or taxonomic controversy based on previous reasearches on D. kikuchii [4] and D. punctatus [5]
They could potentially evolve in two directions: firstly, some Dendrolimus species may inevitably share the same host species and tend to inhabit the same forest, which might lead to taxonomically mis-discrimination [9] and hybridization [8]. (For example, D. tabulaeformis and D. spectabilis are the subspecies of D. punctatus probably due to hybridization of these three species [11,12])
Summary
Dendrolimus houi Lajonquiere (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae), being one of the most abundant phytophagous caterpillar in southern China and some countries in Southeast Asia, voraciously feeds on about 12 species of coniferous trees, including Cryptomeria fortunei, Pinus yunnanensis, Platycladus orientalis, P. kesiya var.langbianensis and Cupressus funebris, causing thousands hectares of dead or dying forests, and it tends to be continuously spreading rapidly [1]. Other speices like D. tabulaeformis, D. kikuchii, D. spectabilis, Euthrix laeta and Trabala vishnou guttata often occur in China as well [8,11], and face the stress of multiple and complex host and environmental factors They could potentially evolve in two directions: firstly, some Dendrolimus species may inevitably share the same host species and tend to inhabit the same forest, which might lead to taxonomically mis-discrimination [9] and hybridization [8]. Some taxonomic relationships focus on the comparison with Lepidoptera [16,17,18,19], very few reports have focused on the phylogenetic relationship among Lasiocampidae genera, so the taxonomy remains unclear
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