Contribution to the taxonomy and phylogeny of the genus Polia Ochsenheimer, 1816 (Noctuidae, Noctuinae, Hadenini): species groups and pairs in the Holarctic subgenus Polia s. str.

Abstract

We review the phylogenetic and biogeographical connections of the Holarctic subgenus Polia, re-considering the diagnoses of the species groups based on the external morphology and the characterisation of the male and female genitalia, as well. We produced trees based on genital morphological characters. A preliminary CO1 consensus tree was also constructed which generally supports the morphologically outlined species groups. The plesiomorphic abdominal brush organ was observed to become lost in different species groups independently. The asymmetrisation of the tufts of bristles on the saccular extensions represents one of the most important traits of the genus. These are weakly differentiated, and the shape is nearly symmetrical in supposedly plesiomorphic character states. The most differentiated asymmetrical saccular processes were found in P. serratilinea and, parallel, also in the species of the Holarctic P. nebulosa group. Holarctic connections are present in most Arctic-Boreal species and certain sister species and/or species groups in temperate taxa (i.e. in the P. bombycina and the P. nebulosa species groups), with subsequent speciation in the Nearctic. It means that Trans-Beringian migrations should have occurred at least three times in the geographical history of Polia, from which the trans-migration of the basally split P. nebulosa group was the most ancient.