Molecular phylogeny of Indonesian Zeuzera(Lepidoptera:Cossidae) wood borer moths based on CO I gene sequence

Abstract

Zeuzera is one of the most important wood borer pests in South East Asia. Like of most other genera of moths, the systematic of this genus is still in dispute, especially on the monophyly and the relationship within this genus due to the fact that genus is very varied. This genus was defined based on external characters only such as cross vein Sc-Rs present, humeral plate approximately triangular in shape and anal plate moderately long to moderately short. Therefore, the monophyly of this genus need to be evaluated based on more comprehensive data. To clarify the monophyly of the genus Zeuzera, to reveal the phylogenetic relationships among the Indonesian species, and to establish the genetic characters of Indonesian Zeuzera, we analyzed seven species of Indonesian Zeuzera including three other species distributed around the world based on nucleotide sequence variation across a 580-bp region in the CO I gene. The results showed that the monophyly of Zeuzera was supported by bootstrap tests at the MP and ML tree building methods (>95%). Genus Zeuzera was divided into two groups (A and B) with Z. borneana was excluded from the two groups and occupied at the basal node. Indonesian species was distributed into two different clades. CO I gene alone was able to fully resolve the relationships among species within clade B. However, further investigations were needed by including more species and other genes that the more conserved to test the validity of the phylogenetic hypothesis proposed here.