Molecular phylogeny of Parnassiinae butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) based on the sequences of four mitochondrial DNA segments

Abstract

A molecular phylogeny of Parnassiinae (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) was generated by combining the partial sequences of three mitochondrial genes (LSU, ND1 and CO1; 1639 aligned sites) with a somewhat enlarged version of the ND5 mitochondrial dataset of Omoto et al. (2004). A total of 125 individuals were sampled (109 Parnassiinae, 14 Papilioninae, two outgroups) with the emphasis being put on genus Parnassius (94 specimens, most of them from natural history collections). Our phylogenetic reconstructions differ in particular from recently published ones in that (i) Baronia brevicornis Salvin 1893, an isolated taxon from Mexico, which had generally been placed in a subfamily of its own, is suggested to belong to Parnassiini, together with Hypermnestra and Parnassius; (ii) the earliest split within Parnassius is shown to be between subgenus Parnasssius (the ‘apollo’ group, whose caterpillars feed on Crassulaceae, exceptionally Saxifragaceae) and the ancestor of the remaining seven subgenera whose existence is confirmed by molecular phylogenies: six of them have Fumariaceae as larval foodplant, while Kreizbergia uses Scrophulariaceae. Within Parnassius, a number of systematic rearrangements at the species level are proposed, in particular within subgenera Parnassius and Koramius (28 and 23 taxa sampled, respectively), by reanalyzing available biological information in the light of our mitochondrial phylogenies. Finally, implications of this work for the biogeography of Parnassiini and shifts in larval host plant use are briefly discussed, the evolution of other adaptive traits in Parnassiinae being the subject of a separate paper.