Molecular and morphological phylogeny of European Udea moths (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Pyraloidea)

Abstract

Udea Guenée, 1845, comprising more than 200 species, predominantly occurs in temperate Eurasia and the New World, with few representatives on the southern continents of the Old World. We present a fi rst phylogenetic analysis for the genus, mainly based on European species. We applied Bayesian and Maximum Parsimony approaches to a combined dataset of coxI (1,415 bp) and wingless (363 bp) sequences as well as morphological characters. The analysis of the concatenated dataset partitions with Bayesian inference yielded a hypothetical tree with 26 well supported (posterior probability ≥ 0.95) monophyla. A clade including the genera Deana, Mnesictena and Udeoides from the southern continents of the Old World is found as sister group to Udea. European Udea species do not form a monophyletic group in itself. There are four monophyla found within European Udea, the ferrugalis, itysalis, alpinalis, and numeralis species groups. These are well supported by molecular and morphological data. According to morphology, all four species groups have representatives also in other parts of the Holarctic region. Our data support the hypothesis that all Udea species endemic to oceanic islands in the Atlantic and Pacifi c belong to the ferrugalis group and all those endemic to the European Alps to the alpinalis group. Our data imply that the ancestors of two island species (Udea azorensis, U. delineatalis) have colonised the respective islands via ocean surface currents. Altogether, we are able to place 54 of the 213 described Udea species into species groups.