Molecular species delimitation in the genusEumerus(Diptera: Syrphidae)

Abstract

Eumerus is one of the most diverse genera of hoverfly worldwide. Species delimitation within genus is considered to be difficult due to: (a) lack of an efficient key; (b) non-defined taxonomical status of a large number of species; and (c) blurred nomenclature. Here, we present the first molecular study to delimit species of the genus by using a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase subunit I gene (COI) gene. We assessed 75 specimens assigned to 28 taxa originating from two biogeographic zones: 22 from the western Palaearctic and six from the Afrotropical region. Two datasets were generated based on different sequence lengths to explore the significance of availability of more polymorphic sites for species delimitation; dataset A with a total length of 647 bp and dataset B with 746 bp. Various tree inference approaches and Poisson tree processes models were applied to evaluate the putative 'taxonomical' vs. 'molecular' taxa clusters. All analyses resulted in high taxonomic resolution and clear species delimitation for both the dataset lengths. Furthermore, we revealed a high number of mitochondrial haplotypes and high intraspecific variability. We report two major monophyletic clades, and seven 'molecular' groups of taxa formed, which are congruent with morphology-based taxonomy. Our results support the use of the mitochondrial COI gene in species diagnosis of Eumerus.

The Hoverflies of an Oak Dehesa from Spain, with a New Species and Other Insights into the Taxonomy of theEumerus tricolorGroup (Diptera: Syrphidae)

“…COI barcodes were analysed from 18 Eumerus specimens, of which 10 represented the following species of the E. tricolor group sensu Chroni et al (2017) Sad, Serbia; MAegean, The Melissotheque of the Aegean, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece. DNA was extracted from two to three legs of dry pinned specimens.…”

New data on the hover-flies of the genus Eumerus (Diptera: Syrphidae) from Russia

“…The continually increasing interest of dipterologists in the genus Eumerus Meigen, 1822 is due primarily to its huge species diversity and practical significance as phytophages (Vujić & Simić, 1999;Steenis et al, 2017;Chroni et al, 2017). Particular attention has been paid to the onion bulb fly Eumerus strigatus (Fallén, 1817), the lesser bulb fly Eumerus funeralis Meigen, 1822 and similar species that damage agricultural and ornamental plants (Popov, 2011a;Speight et al, 2013).…”

First molecular characterization of the facultative myiasis agent Eristalis tenax in Turkey using mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I DNA barcoding sequences

“…This standardized short gene region from mitochondrial DNA is generally considered as a reliable, cost-effective, and easy molecular identification tool, with wide use throughout the metazoan taxa [45,46]. CO1 barcoding has also been used for species delimitation in various genera in Syrphidae, including Cheilosia vernalis complex [47], the genus Merodon [48], Chrysotoxum [49], Platycheirus [50], Eumerus [42], and the Afrotropical species [51]. In accordance with those studies [42,50,51], the barcode CO1 region successfully delimitated the species of Eristalis in separate monophyletic clusters with an overall interspecific genetic distance of 6.8%.…”