Historic DNA for taxonomy and conservation: A case-study of a century-old Hawaiian hawkmoth type (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)

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Abstract

Analysing historic DNA from museum specimens offers the unique opportunity to study the molecular systematics and phylogenetics of rare and possibly extinct taxa. In the Hawaiian fauna, the hawkmoth, Hyles calida calida, occurs on several of the main islands and is quite frequent, whereas Hyles c. hawaiiensis is restricted to the Island of Hawaii where it appears to be very rare. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences shows that Hyles c. hawaiiensis differs from the nominotypical subspecies by an average p-distance of 2.8%, which is of a similar order of magnitude to that found between other species of Hyles, suggesting that Hyles c. hawaiiensis should perhaps be awarded species status, although more data are required for a formal taxonomic revision. Given the rarity of this taxon, these analyses should be undertaken urgently so that conservation measures can be implemented before it becomes extinct.

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Most cited references 26

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A POSSIBLE ORIGIN OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

J. Wilson (1963)

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A revised molecular phylogeny of the globally distributed hawkmoth genus Hyles (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae), based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences.

Anna Hundsdoerfer, Daniel Rubinoff, Marc Attié … (2009)

The hawkmoth genus Hyles comprises some 29 species with a global distribution. In this study, we augment the previous taxon sampling with more species and add sequences from a nuclear gene to produce a refined phylogenetic hypothesis. A total evidence reconstruction based on Bayesian analysis of the combined mitochondrial (COI, t-RNA-Leu, COII; 2284 bp) and nuclear (EF1alpha; 773 bp) sequences is discussed and compared with the results from separate analyses of the two genes. The total evidence phylogeny corroborates many of the phylogenetic relationships previously postulated within the genus. In addition, the hitherto unsampled enigmatic species Hyles biguttata from Madagascar appears as sister group to Hyles livornicoides from Australia, although support for the relationship is relatively weak. The high level of differentiation of Hyles perkinsi from H. calida (both Hawaii), and the status of these two as sister species, is corroborated by both sources of sequence data. However, their phylogenetic position when mt DNA sequences alone are considered differs markedly from that under total evidence. The previously postulated relationships within the Hyles euphorbiae complex (HEC) s.s. are largely corroborated, but H. dahlii is now more closely related and the HEC s.l. is redefined to include H. zygophylli and H. stroehlei (two species that had not been studied previously using molecular data) and to exclude H. siehei and H. hippophaes. The nuclear sequences alone are insufficiently variable to fully resolve all lineages and the phylogeny suggests that nuclear gene swapping and incomplete lineage sorting have occurred implying recent divergence. The results from the total evidence analysis provide a phylogenetic hypothesis that both corroborates and complements the previous biogeographic scenario, and provides new insights into the origins of several of the included taxa.

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Identity of Pelodiscus sinensis revealed by DNA sequences of an approximately 180-year-old type specimen and a taxonomic reappraisal of Pelodiscus species (Testudines: Trionychidae)

Heiko Stuckas, Uwe Fritz (2011)

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Author and article information

Contributors

William J. Etges: Role: Editor

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS One

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): PLoS ONE

Journal ID (publisher-id): plos

Journal ID (pmc): plosone

Title: PLoS ONE

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )

ISSN (Electronic): 1932-6203

Publication date (Electronic): 8 March 2017

Publication date Collection: 2017

Volume: 12

Issue: 3

Electronic Location Identifier: e0173255

Affiliations

[1 ]Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, Dresden, Germany

[2 ]Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom

University of Arkansas, UNITED STATES

Author notes

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Conceptualization: AKH IJK.
Data curation: AKH.
Formal analysis: AKH.
Funding acquisition: AKH IJK.
Investigation: AKH IJK.
Methodology: AKH.
Project administration: AKH IJK.
Resources: AKH IJK.
Visualization: AKH.
Writing – original draft: AKH IJK.
Writing – review & editing: AKH IJK.

* E-mail: anna.hundsdoerfer@ 123456senckenberg.de

Author information

Anna K. Hundsdoerfer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5594-4154

Article

Publisher ID: PONE-D-16-49723

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173255

PMC ID: 5342228

PubMed ID: 28273123

SO-VID: 4f85320f-f8a0-4daf-81df-4f18cee15685

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

History

Date received : 16 December 2016

Date accepted : 17 February 2017

Page count

Figures: 1, Tables: 1, Pages: 10