title: Phylogenetic molecular species delimitations unravel potential new species in the pest genus Spodoptera Guenée, 1852 (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae).
abstract: Nowadays molecular species delimitation methods promote the identification of species boundaries within complex taxonomic groups by adopting innovative species concepts and theories (e.g. branching patterns, coalescence). As some of them can efficiently deal with large single-locus datasets, they could speed up the process of species discovery compared to more time consuming molecular methods, and benefit from the existence of large public datasets; these methods can also particularly favour scientific research and actions dealing with threatened or economically important taxa. In this study we aim to investigate and clarify the status of economically important moths species belonging to the genus Spodoptera (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae), a complex group in which previous phylogenetic analyses and integrative approaches already suggested the possible occurrence of cryptic species and taxonomic ambiguities. In this work, the effectiveness of innovative (and faster) species delimitation approaches to infer putative species boundaries has been successfully tested in Spodoptera, by processing the most comprehensive dataset (in terms of number of species and specimens) ever achieved; results are congruent and reliable, irrespective of the set of parameters and phylogenetic models applied. Our analyses confirm the existence of three potential new species clusters (for S. exigua (Hübner, 1808), S. frugiperda (J.E. Smith, 1797) and S. mauritia (Boisduval, 1833)) and support the synonymy of S. marima (Schaus, 1904) with S. ornithogalli (Guenée, 1852). They also highlight the ambiguity of the status of S. cosmiodes (Walker, 1858) and S. descoinsi Lalanne-Cassou & Silvain, 1994. This case study highlights the interest of molecular species delimitation methods as valuable tools for species discovery and to emphasize taxonomic ambiguities.
authors: Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors: Pascaline
authors: P
authors: Dumas
authors: Direction des collections-USM 602, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.
authors: Jérôme
authors: J
authors: Barbut
authors: IRD/CNRS, Laboratoire Evolution Génomes Spéciation, Avenue de la terrasse, Gif-sur-Yvette, France and Université Paris-Sud 11, Orsay, France; Unité de Recherche IRD 072, African Insect Science for Food and Health (icipe), Nairobi, Kenya.
authors: Bruno
authors: B
authors: Le Ru
authors: IRD/CNRS, Laboratoire Evolution Génomes Spéciation, Avenue de la terrasse, Gif-sur-Yvette, France and Université Paris-Sud 11, Orsay, France.
authors: Jean-François
authors: JF
authors: Silvain
authors: INRA-UMR 1062 CBGP (INRA, IRD, CIRAD, Montpellier SupAgro), Montferrier-sur-Lez, France.
authors: Anne-Laure
authors: AL
authors: Clamens
authors: UM2-UMR 1333 DGIMI, Université Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France; INRA-UMR 1333 DGIMI, Université Montpellier 2, Montpellier, France.
authors: Emmanuelle
authors: E
authors: d'Alençon
authors: INRA-UMR 1062 CBGP (INRA, IRD, CIRAD, Montpellier SupAgro), Montferrier-sur-Lez, France.
authors: Gael J
authors: GJ
authors: Kergoat
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D049810:Genetic Speciation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D018411:Spodoptera / Q000235:genetics*