3.6 Phylogenetic Relationships
In this study, we conducted phylogenetic analysis on 39 butterfly
species (including 4 outgroup species) with ML and BI methods based on
three datasets (PCGs, PRT and 12PRT). Results show that the obtained
phylogenetic trees harbored almost the same topological structures, with
nodes of the tree being strongly supported (the bootstrap support
values, BS, of ML trees and the posterior probability, PP, of the BI
trees). Due to the limitation of the length of the paper, only one
(PCGs-BI) of the six phylogenetic trees is shown here (Figure 5). The
rest of the trees are in the supplementary materials (Figure S1—S5).
The
phylogenetic tree consists of 8 clades corresponding to 8 major
hesperiid subfamilies, and their relationships are (Coeliadinae +
(Euschemoninae + ((Pyrginae + (Eudaminae + Tagiadinae)) +
(Heteropterinae + (Barcinae + Hesperiinae))))) (Figure 5). The position
of Eudaminae does not agree with that of previous studies where the
subfamily is sister to the Pyrginae sensu lato, ie. Tagiadinae,
Pyrrhopiginae, and Pyrginae sens Zhang et al (Jing Zhang et al., 2019).
For the 3 Aeromachini species in this study, all results indicate thatH.nephele and O.maga are sister groups (PP=1), and theH.nephele + O.maga calde is sister to A.virgatawith strong support values (PP=1). The Aeromachini form an independent
clade in the subfamily Hesperiinae, which is the subbasal lineage among
them (PP=1). Although our analyses did not select sufficient samples of
representative groups, for example the Eudaminae, a satisfactorily
clustering and high node support values were present in all the obtained
trees.
Apostictopterus fuliginosus and Barca bicolor had been
placed in the subfamily Heteropterinae in previous research (Warren et
al., 2008, 2009; Yuan et al., 2015) until Han et al. proposed thatA.
fuliginosus and B. bicolor should be placed in subfamily
Hesperiinae through phylogenetic analysis of mitogenomes (Han et al.,
2018). Subsequently Zhang et al, adding Trapezitinae in their analysis,
raised them to a subfamily rank Barcinae (Jing Zhang et al., 2019).
Since we could not include Trapezitinae in our analysis, we can only
conclude that the hypothesis to place A. fuliginosus and B.
bicolor out of the subfamily Heteropterinae is correct, and whether
Barcinae is an independent subfamily or not needs further
research.
4. Conclusions
Three mitogenomes of species in the tribe Aeromachini (Amipittia
virgata , Halpe nephele and Onryza maga ) were sequenced to
provide more comprehensive molecular data for phylogenetic status in
this study. The size and structure of mitochondria, gene order, and AT
content of these three species are highly consistent with other
Lepidoptera species. We conducted the phylogenetic analyses using ML and
BI methods, and the results show that Aeromachini is a monophyletic
group and sister to the rest of
Hesperiinae
and that the relationships among hesperiid subfamilies is Coeliadinae +
(Euschemoninae + ((Pyrginae + (Eudaminae + Tagiadinae)) +
(Heteropterinae + (Barcinae + Hesperiinae)))). Moreover, we support the
previous study placing A. fuliginosus and B. bicolor out
of the subfamily Hesperiinae. Our research provides data and a framework
for the phylogeny of the tribe Aeromachini as well as even the family
Hesperiidae.
Data Availability Statement
The following information was supplied regarding the availability of DNA
sequences: The complete mitogenome of Amipittia virgata ,Halpe nephele and Onryza maga is deposited in GenBank of
NCBI under accession number MW288057, MW288058 and MW288059,
respectively.