Rethinking species: Species delimitation in a radiation of island endemic plant bugs (Pseudoloxops) in French Polynesia

Species delimitation in entomology has traditionally been based on morphological discontinuity in groups of specimens. With the emergence of new molecular tools, the amounts and types of data available to taxonomists have grown, spurring an increase in integrative taxonomic approaches. Here we establish the universal species concept as our guiding principle and integrate four sets of molecular and morphological data for 197 adult specimens of a Pseudoloxops plant bug (Heteroptera: Miridae) radiation in French Polynesia. The first data set consists of 11 traditional morphometric size measurements and is analyzed with PCA and ANOVA; the second set consists of a geometric morphometric analysis of characters in the male genitalia; the third consists of DNA sequence data for two mitochondrial (16S, CO1) and one nuclear (28S) gene combined with 20 morphological characters analyzed with phylogenetic inference; and the fourth is a coalescent-based analysis of the molecular data. Statistical significance is used to sort groups of specimens into putative species, with morphological distinctness and monophyly as delimitation criteria; data sets are examined independently. Consilience between data sets is used to propose new species for description, with full descriptions to follow.