Pachybrachis holerorum (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Cryptocephalinae), a new species from the Apennines, Italy, identified by integration of morphological and molecular data

Abstract

Pachybrachis holerorum n. sp. is described from the northern Apennines, Italy. The new species is related to P. karamani (Weise, 1893), from which it differs in the shape of the median lobe of the aedeagus and in small differences in chromatic pattern. The close relationship with P. karamani is confirmed by molecular analyses performed on a fragment of 829 nucleotides of the mitochondrial gene Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1). The general mixed Yule-coalescent model, developed for species delimitation using single-locus molecular data, was applied to a cox1 phylogeny in order to test the hypothesis of P. holerorum as a separate species. Information on the host plants, acquired during specimen collection, was confirmed from gut content, targeting a fragment of the plastid large subunit of the ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase gene and the trnL(UAA) intron. Besides, the lectotype of P. karamani is designated.

DNABarcoding as useful tool to identify crop pest flea beetles of Turkey

“…High correspondence between morphospecies and molecular species based on DNA barcodes was achieved, and the nucleotide distances within and between species highlighted the presence of an almost clear barcode gap. The intraspecific mean nucleotide distance value estimated in ds1 is in agreement with those obtained in previous studies on Chrysomelidae (Kolasa et al., ; Magoga et al., , 2018; Montagna, Sassi, & Giorgi, ). The values of the mean nucleotide intraspecific distance calculated for Chaetocnema and Phyllotreta genera separately are different, viz.…”

Barcoding Chrysomelidae: a resource for taxonomy and biodiversity conservation in the Mediterranean Region

“…The sampling efforts that have been accomplished until now led to the collection of more than 5000 Chrysomelidae specimens. During the identification process, some specimens of previously unknown species were recognized, these samples were used for the description of the following species: Pachybrachis sassii (Montagna 2011) from the Giglio Island in the Tuscan Archipelago; Pachybrachis holerorum (Montagna et al 2013) from the Northern Apennines and Oulema mauroi Bezděk & Baselga, 2015, from Northen Italy. Other samples collected during the C-Bar collecting campaigns were used in a revision of Colaspidea genus that led to the description of seven new species (Zoia 2014).…”

“…Numerous collecting campaigns have been organized during the first seven years of the project, which led to the collection of more than 5000 leaf beetle specimens. In addition, during these collecting campaigns two new allochthonous species for Europe, namely Ophraella communa LeSage, 1986 and Colasposoma dauricum Mannerheim, 1849, were intercepted and some species new to science were discovered (e.g., Pachybrachis sassii Montagna, 2011 and Pachybrachis holerorum Montagna et al, 2013). DNA was extracted from 1006 specimens (~13% of the species inhabiting the Mediterranean region) and a total of 910 cox1 gene sequences were obtained (PCR amplification efficiency of 93.8%).…”

Barcoding of Chrysomelidae of Euro-Mediterranean area: efficiency and problematic species

“…The adopted thermal protocol is reported in Montagna et al . 11 . Positive amplicons were directly sequenced on both strands using the marker-specific primers from ABI technology (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, USA).…”

“…The correct identification of organisms is regarded to be essential in both applicative field and evolutionary studies; at present, their taxonomy, based on morphological features, requires a high level of expertise that could be reached only after years of study. In some cases, as for several species groups, the accurate species identification of adults can only be achieved extracting genitalia 11 – 13 . Therefore, preimaginal developmental stages can be only rarely identified to species level.…”