A new Neotibicen cicada subspecies (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) from the southeastern USA forms hybrid zones with a widespread relative despite a divergent male calling song

Abstract

A morphologically cryptic subspecies of Neotibicen similaris (Smith and Grossbeck) is described from forests of the Apalachicola region of the southeastern United States. Although the new form exhibits a highly distinctive male calling song, it hybridizes extensively where it meets populations of the nominate subspecies in parapatry, by which it is nearly surrounded. This is the first reported example of hybridization between North American nonperiodical cicadas. Acoustic and morphological characters are added to the original description of the nominate subspecies, and illustrations of complex hybrid song phenotypes are presented. The biogeography of N. similaris is discussed in light of historical changes in forest composition on the southeastern Coastal Plain.

A new species of Okanagana from the Walker Lane region of Nevada and California (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae)

“…Species hypotheses are invoked to explain differential fixation of characters among individuals due to lineage splitting and reproductive isolation (Fitzhugh 2013), whereas subspecies hypotheses explain cases in which tokogeneny and widespread gene flow persist among individuals. Subspecies ranks have been applied to several recently described cicada taxa (Hertach et al 2016;Marshall & Hill 2017;Popple 2013) in which recent tokogenetic processes were evident in the forms of hybrid songs and/or contemporary gene flow at contact zones.…”