Ectoedemia rosae, a new species with disjunct distribution in the French Alps and Norway (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae)

Phylogenomic inference of two widespread European leaf miner species complexes suggests mechanisms for sympatric speciation (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae: Ectoedemia)

“…Morphologically, the adults of these two species are only distinguished by the width of the ductus spermathecae in the female genitalia (van Nieukerken, 1985). Ectoedemia liechtensteini (Zimmermann) was described as a separate species feeding on Quercus cerris (Zimmermann, 1944), and further differentiated based on larval colour (van Nieukerken, 1985). Ectoedemia phyllotomella (Klimesch) was likewise described from Quercus cerris in Italy (Klimesch, 1948) on the basis of its peculiar behaviour to cut out an oval case from the mine, in which it prepares its cocoon.…”

“…In particular, double digest Restrictionsite Associated DNA (ddRAD) sequencing and allied methods (Campbell et al, 2018) have proven cost-effective in generating large datasets, provided that the divergence times are not so distant as to cause allelic dropout resulting in increasing amounts of missing data (Eaton et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2018). A molecularly dated T A B L E 1 Summary of hosts and distributions of the Ectoedemia species studied (sources: van Nieukerken, 1985 for the E. subbimaculella complex at $1.77 Ma ago (Doorenweerd et al, 2016). This suggests relatively recent divergence in both complexes and highlights the potential for incomplete lineage sorting with limited genetic data.…”

“…Prior research on nepticulids produced several poorly resolved ‘taxonomic complexes’, where morphological delineation proved unsuccessful or conflicted with species boundaries supported by ecological and behavioural characters. The genus Ectoedemia Busck (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae) has been studied with molecular markers mitochondrial Cytochrome C Oxidase I (COI) and nuclear Elongation Factor 1‐alpha (EF1‐alpha) in addition to morphology (van Nieukerken, 1985; van Nieukerken et al, 2010, 2012), and its biogeographic and host use patterns have been explored on a global scale with eight markers covering 92 species (Doorenweerd et al, 2015). This work has left two species complexes unresolved: three or four putative species in the E. rubivora complex, and four named species in the E. subbimaculella complex (Figure 1).…”

“…Definitive species resolution in the Ectoedemia rubivora complex (Figure 1a,b,c,f,g) has been attempted using several approaches including morphology (e.g. Beirne, 1945; van Nieukerken, 1985; van Nieukerken et al, 2010), allozymes (Wilkinson et al, 1983), and two‐gene DNA barcoding (van Nieukerken et al, 2012). By the end of the 1980s, four species were included in the complex: E. angulifasciella (Stainton), E. rubivora (Wocke), E. atricollis (Stainton) and E. arcuatella (Herrich‐Schäffer).…”

“…All DNA extracts, pinned specimens, dried leaf mines, and larvae and genitalia slides are stored in the Naturalis collections as voucher material. Preliminary identification of specimens was based on hostplant, mine form, and adult characters as reported byvan Nieukerken (1985). We used the presence or absence of a slit in the mine and the larval head colour (dark versus light brown) to separate larvae of E. subbimaculella from E. heringi.COI and EF1-alpha sequencesPartial sequences data for Cytochrome C Oxidase I and Elongation Factor 1 alpha were available from van Nieukerken et al (2012).…”