@article {22206, title = {Morphological evolution in Hyles H{\"u}bner, 1819 hawkmoths (Lepidoptera, Sphingidae): reconstructing the ancestral Hyles habitus}, journal = {Nota Lepidopterologica}, volume = {43}, year = {2020}, month = {07/2020}, pages = {181-210}, chapter = {181}, abstract = {

\"Molecular phylogenetic studies suggest that similar wing and body patterns in the hawkmoth genus Hyles H\übner, [1819] do not necessarily reflect a close phylogenetic relationship. To improve our understanding of morphological evolution in these organisms, 75 characters derived from the external adult morphology are explicitly coded and analysed in a maximum parsimony cladistic framework. The results corroborate the hypothesis that wing and body patterns have indeed reappeared in different parts of the phylogeny but the underlying genetic mechanism remains to be determined. By reconstructing the suite of ancestral states of the morphological characters using Bayesian inference, we derived an approximation of the appearance of the proto-Hyles species. The overall habitus of this moth does not display a combination of characters found in any extant Hyles species. Rather, the forewings are most like those of members of the Hyles euphorbiae-complex but with better developed antemedial and postmedial lines, the hindwings are typical Hyles, and the abdominal pattern most closely resembles that of Hyles euphorbiarum (Gu\érin-M\éneville \& Percheron, 1835), but with one fewer pairs of black subdorsal patches. Within the context of the subtribe Choerocampina and Sphingidae more generally, the proto-Hyles reconstruction does not resemble any other species apart from Rhodafra opheltes (Cramer, 1780), but this appears to be another instance of convergent pattern expression.\"

}, keywords = {ADULT MORPHOLOGY, ANCESTRAL STATE RECONSTRUCTION, BAYESIAN INFERENCE, EVOLUTION, HYLES, IMPLIED WEIGHTING, PARSIMONY, SPHINGIDAE, WING PATTERN}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.43.49512}, author = {Hundsdoerfer, A.K. and Kitching, I.J.} } @article {22187, title = {Ancient incomplete lineage sorting of Hyles and Rhodafra (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)}, journal = {Organisms Diversity and Evolution}, volume = {20}, year = {2020}, month = {08/2020}, pages = {527-536}, chapter = {527}, abstract = {

\"The hawkmoth genus Rhodafra comprises two African species with unclear relationships, as their wing patterns are markedly different, with one species closely resembling species of a related genus, Hyles. The present paper aims to investigate the monophyly and phylogenetic position of Rhodafra in relation to Hyles and other genera of the subtribe Choerocampina (Sphingidae: Macroglossinae: Macroglossini) using mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data from more species and individuals than have hitherto been studied. As no fresh tissue of Rhodafra was available, ancient-DNA methodology was applied. All data corroborate the genus asmonophyletic and that a similar wing pattern is not a good indicator of close phylogenetic relationship in this group of moths. Phylogenetic trees based on mitochondrial data agree in placing Rhodafra within Hyles. In contrast, analysis of nuclear EF1alpha sequences produces a topology in which Rhodafra is placed as the sister clade to Hyles. Although multispecies coalescent analyses suggest a polytomy between Rhodafra, Hyles lineata and the remaining Hyles, total evidence analyses corroborate Rhodafra as sister to Hyles. This relationship is interpreted as the favoured topology. For a more robust result, the question should be re-examined using genomic approaches.\"

}, keywords = {ADNA, DNA, EF-1ALPHA, HYLES, INTROGRESSION, MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD, MTDNA, MULTISPECIES COALESCENT MODELS, RHODAFRA, SPHINGIDAE, TOTAL EVIDENCE, WING PATTERN}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-020-00445-0}, author = {Hundsdoerfer, A.K. and Kitching, I.J.} } @article {22186, title = {Advantages of an easy-to-use DNA extraction method for minimal-destructive analysis of collection specimens}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {17}, year = {2020}, month = {07/2020}, pages = {e0235222}, chapter = {e0235222}, abstract = {

\"Here we present and justify an approach for minimal-destructive DNA extraction from historic insect specimens for next generation sequencing applications. An increasing number of studies use insects from museum collections for biodiversity research. However, the availability of specimens for molecular analyses has been limited by the degraded nature of the DNA gained from century-old museum material and the consumptive nature of most DNA extraction procedures. The method described in this manuscript enabled us to successfully extract DNA from specimens as old as 241 years using a minimal-destructive approach. The direct comparison of the DNeasy extraction Kit and the Monarch\® PCR \& DNA Clean-up Kit showed a significant increase of 17.3-fold higher DNA yield extracted with the Monarch Oligo protocol on average. By using an extraction protocol originally designed for oligonucleotide clean-up, we were able to combine overcoming the restrictions by target fragment size and strand state, with minimising time consumption and labour-intensity. The type specimens used for the minimal-destructive DNA extraction exhibited no significant external change or post-extraction damage, while sufficient DNA was retrieved for analyses.\"

}, keywords = {ADNA, COI, COII, DNA, EXTRACTION PROTOCOLS, HYLES, MAXIMUM LIKELIHOOD, METHODOLOGY, MTDNA, MUSEUM, NEXTGEN SEQUENCING, SAMPLING, SPHINGIDAE, TRNA(LEU), TYPES}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235222}, author = {Patzold, F. and Zilli, A. and Hundsdoerfer, A.K.} } @article {22089, title = {A highly contiguous genome assembly of the bat hawkmoth Hyles vespertilio (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)}, journal = {GigaScience}, volume = {9}, year = {2020}, month = {01/2020}, pages = {giaa001 [10 pp.]}, chapter = {giaa001}, abstract = {

\"Background: Adapted to different ecological niches, moth species belonging to the Hyles genus exhibit a spectacular diversity of larval color patterns. These species diverged \∼7.5 million years ago, making this rather young genus an interesting system to study a wide range of questions including the process of speciation, ecological adaptation, and adaptive radiation. Results: Here we present a high-quality genome assembly of the bat hawkmoth Hyles vespertilio, the first reference genome of a member of the Hyles genus. We generated 51\× Pacific Biosciences long reads with an average read length of 8.9 kb. Pacific Biosciences reads longer than 4 kb were assembled into contigs, resulting in a 651.4-Mb assembly consisting of 530 contigs with an N50 value of 7.5 Mb. The circular mitochondrial contig has a length of 15,303 bp. The H. vespertilio genome is very repeat-rich and exhibits a higher repeat content (50.3\%) than other Bombycoidea species such as Bombyx mori (45.7\%) and Manduca sexta (27.5\%). We developed a comprehensive gene annotation workflow to obtain consensus gene models from different evidence including gene projections, protein homology, transcriptome data, and ab initio predictions. The resulting gene annotation is highly complete with 94.5\% of BUSCO genes being completely present, which is higher than the BUSCO completeness of the B. mori (92.2\%) and M. sexta (90\%) annotations. Conclusions: Our gene annotation strategy has general applicability to other genomes, and the H. vespertilio genome provides a valuable molecular resource to study a range of questions in this genus, including phylogeny, incomplete lineage sorting, speciation, and hybridization. A genome browser displaying the genome, alignments, and annotations is available at https://genome-public.pks.mpg.de/cgi-bin/hgTracks?db=HLhylVes1.\"

}, keywords = {BOMBYX, GENE ANNOTATION, GENOME ASSEMBLY, HYLES, ITALY, MANDUCA, PACBIO LONG READS, SPHINGIDAE, WORLDMAP1}, doi = {10.1093/gigascience/giaa001}, author = {Pippel, M. and Jebb, D. and Patzold, F. and Winkler, S. and Vogel, H. and Myers, G. and Hiller, M. and Hundsdoerfer, A.K.} }