The morphological phenotypic characters involving sexual selection but with highly individual variability are likely to challenge the prezygotic isolating mechanism driven by differentiation of mechanical structures. This kind of characters may also puzzle species identification and taxonomy. Therefore clarifying the correlation between the phenotypic variability and biological/non-biological factors becomes necessary in order to understand the role of this phenomenon under natural selection and sexual selection. The Syntomini represents one of the few lepidopterous groups that exhibit highly individual variability in both wing pattern and reproductive structures. The evolutionary and taxonomic significance of this phenomenon, however, has never been studied using modern methods although it has been documented for long. In order to test several hypotheses relevant to phenotypic variability, the present study focuses the phylogenetic relationship of Amata wilemani Rothschild, 1914, a subalpine moth species with extremely high variability in wing coloration and genitalia. The phylogenetic relationship between the three color morphs of A. wilemani and 38 Syntomini species plus 2 Lithosiinae outgroups was reconstructed using fragments of COI, EF1a and 28S. All color morphs of A. wilemani were recovered to form a monophyletic group under all data partitioning strategies with Amata formosensis (Wileman, 1928) or its closely related species in China as the potential sister group. The result of gene network analysis suggests low divergence between haplotypes of A. wilemani. Because no correlation between color morphs, phenology, geographical distribution, altitudinal gradient, and genitalic morphlogy was detected, it is concluded that A. wilemani should be regarded as a single species with high phenotypic variability, and this may suggest existence of intraspecific competition. The present study also found that Amata karapinensis (Strand, 1915), which was synonymized with A. wilemani by previous authors, should be revived. The incongruence between the phylogenetic relationships based on morphological and molecular characters shows a need of a comprehensive phylogenetic study of this highly diverse group.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0719111-114801 |
| Date | 19 July 2011 |
| Creators | Liu, Yao-Hung |
| Contributors | Yu-Feng Hsu, Shen-Horn Yen, Si-Min Lin |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0719111-114801 |
| Rights | campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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