Mitogenomes of Nine Asian Skipper Genera and Their Phylogenetic Position (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Pyrginae)

Abstract

In this study, complete mitochondrial genomes of nine species representing three tribes in the subfamily Pyrginae sensu lato were newly sequenced. The mitogenomes are closed double-stranded circular molecules, with the length ranging from 15,232 bp to 15,559 bp, which all encode 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and a control region. The orientation and gene order of these nine mitogenomes are identical to the inferred ancestral arrangement of insects. All PCGs exhibit the typical start codon ATN except for cox1 (using CGA) and cox2 (using TTG) in Mooreana trichoneura. Most of the PCGs terminate with a TAA stop codon, while cox1, cox2, nad4, and nad5 end with the incomplete codon single T. For the different datasets, we found that the one comprising all 37 genes of the mitogenome produced the highest nodal support, indicating that the inclusion of RNAs improves the phylogenetic signal. This study re-confirmed the status of Capila, Pseudocoladenia, and Sarangesa; namely, Capila belongs to the tribe Tagiadini, and Pseudocoladenia and Sarangesa to the tribe Celaenorrhini. Diagnostic characters distinguishing the two tribes, the length of the forewing cell and labial palpi, are no longer significant. Two populations of Pseudocoladenia dan fabia from China and Myanmar and P. dan dhyana from Thailand are confirmed as conspecific.

Phylogenetic Implication of Large Intergenic Spacers: Insights from a Mitogenomic Comparison of Prosopocoilus Stag Beetles (Coleoptera: Lucanidae)

“…The IGSs have also been found between different genes in the mitogenomes of other beetles, such as between trnW and trnC [8], nad2, and trnW [21], trnI and trnQ [4,22,23], and so on. Comparative analyses of IGSs suggest that the presence and location of the IGS may be useful for studying evolutionary history and species delimitation in insects [24,25], such as those in the families Meloidae [8,13], Cleridae [16], and Scarabaeoidae [18]. Although a recent study reported that the Dorcus velutinus complex had a large IGS (>50 bp) between trnS2 (UCN) and nad1 [20], very little is known about large IGSs in Prosopocoilus mitogenomes.…”

Comparative mitochondrial genome brings insights to slight variation in gene proportion and large intergenic spacer and phylogenetic relationship of mudskipper species.

“…Intergenic spacers (IGS) are non-coding regions that are found between genes and are typically found in Metazoa and most vertebrate animals and in most cases serve as a transcription promotor mitogenomes(Saton et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2018) and, they have in uence on the growth rate of some invertebrate animals(Gorokhova et al, 2002). They are important signal for evolutionary studies and even species delimitation(Xi et al, 2015;Xu et al, 2022;Xiao et al, 2022). Besides IGS event, there is also segments of gene overlapping in mitochondrial genome(Chandhini et al, 2021).…”

Macrostructural Evolution of the Mitogenome of Butterflies (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea)

“…Our annotation/re-annotation and new assembly of the mitogenomes of Erynnis tages, Erynnis popoviana and Erynnis brizo brizo revealed that they share S1NGO with E. montanus (Figure 8). The presence of S1NGO in the mitogenome of E. popoviana was unrecognized in the paper describing it [37]. However, the comparison of the trnN and trnS1 sequences, identified during reannotation, with the orthologous counterparts of other Erynnis species provides compelling evidence in favour of this genomic arrangement (Figure 8).…”

“…We also sequenced the mitogenomes of two endangered butterflies, Parnassius apollo and Lopinga achine. Finally, we assembled the mitogenomes of the skippers Erynnis brizo brizo, Gesta gesta and Ephyriades brunnea brunnea, starting from available Illumina reads [36], as these taxa are key species for better understanding the evolution of S1NGO within the Hesperiidae [37] (see below).…”

“…Currently, S1NGO is known only for the genus Erynnis. Indeed, Gesta gesta and Ephyriades brunnea brunnea, which resulted in the taxa with an available mitogenome, most closely related to the genus Erynnis in the very recent phylogeny of Xiao et al [37], who presents the standard MIQGO. Available taxonomic coverage, combined with the low level of rearrangement of S1NGO that shares 95% of shared common intervals with MIQGO (Figure 2), suggests considering for the moment this gene order as a structural mitosignature, awaiting further corroboration to be possibly elevated to true synapomorphy.…”