Abstract
Wing morphology of the three closely related species of Melitaea - M. athalia (Rottemburg, 1775), M. aurelia (Nickerl, 1850) and M. britomartis Assmann, 1847 - co-occurring in the Balkans (SE Europe) was investigated in detail through visual inspection, morphometric analysis and multivariate statistical analysis. Results are compared to recent phylogenetic studies, searching for concordant patterns and discrepancies between the two approaches. The morphology of the genitalic structures is also com- pared with the results of the other two approaches. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) small albeit significant differences in wing morphology exist among the three species and (2) while the structure of male genitalia and phylogenetic position of the three species are concordant, they are (3) in discordance with the wing morphology. The present study represents another example where identification based on external morphology would lead to highly unreliable determinations, hence identification based on phy- logenetic studies and/or genitalia is strongly recommended not only for the three studied species but also more broadly within the genus. Furthermore, we show that some of the characters generally used in the identification of these three Melitaea species should be avoided in future.
Highlights
The genus Melitaea Fabricius, 1807 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) as it is known today (Leneveu et al 2009), comprises approximately 80 species, all restricted to the Palaearctic region
All characters are positively correlated to PC1, starting with the smallest M. aurelia and finishing with the largest of three species, M. athalia
The genitalia structures (Urbahn 1952) and the phylogeny based on three genes of the three Melitaea species are in agreement, clearly showing that M. aurelia is more distant from the other two species
Summary
The genus Melitaea Fabricius, 1807 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) as it is known today (Leneveu et al 2009), comprises approximately 80 species, all restricted to the Palaearctic region. Within the ‘Melitaea clade’ five subclades have been recognized (sensu Leneveu et al 2009): ‘cinxia’, ‘diamina’, ‘arcesia’, ‘minerva’ and ‘athalia’ groups. The latter subclade comprises fourteen species, three of which are present in the area of north-western Balkans: Melitaea athalia (Rottemburg, 1775), Melitaea aurelia (Nickerl, 1850) and Melitaea britomartis Assmann, 1847. These three species belong to two different monophyletic groups within the subclade ‘athalia’, one comprising M. aurelia and five other species, and the other M. athalia, M. britomartis and six other species (Leneveu et al 2009). The split between the latter two monophyletic groups has been estimated to have
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