Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - 10:17 AM
1046

Phylogeny and taxonomic ranking of tribes in Parnassiinae (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae) based on morphology and seven genes

Vazrick Nazari, vnazari@ualberta.ca1, Evgueni Zakharov, zakharov.2@nd.edu2, and Felix A. H. Sperling, felix.sperling@ualberta.ca1. (1) University of Alberta, Biological Sciences, cw405 Biosciences Centre, Edmonton, AB, Canada, (2) University of Notre Dame, Biological Sciences, 107 Galvin Life Sciences, Notre Dame, IN

When is it justified to change the higher level classification of a well known taxon? The recent availability of large amounts of DNA sequence data from phylogenetic studies has raised the profile of this age-old problem, with the additional complication that DNA data may not be congruent with morphology data. We now have a substantial amount of DNA sequence available for reconstructing the phylogeny of swallowtail butterflies of the subfamily Parnassiinae, and this clearly supports the recognition of an additional tribe, the Luehdorfiini, in spite of the complete absence of support for this grouping from morphological characters. Nonetheless, morphology does not substantially conflict with this grouping, and therefore we believe that the Luehdorfiini should be formally recognized based on the DNA data alone.


Species 1: Lepidoptera Papilionidae Parnassius smintheus
Species 2: Lepidoptera Papilionidae Luehdorfia japonica
Species 3: Lepidoptera Papilionidae Zerynthia rumina

[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation