Incongruence of morphology and genetic markers in Hyles tithymali (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) from the Canary Islands

"Hyles t. tithymali on the Canary Islands has been observed to occur in two larval morphotypes, connected by intermediate forms along a geographical cline from east to west. In this study, it was tested whether this distribution of phenotypes reflects a genealogical division of the population. mtDNA sequence data (COI + II, tRNA-leu) and genomic fingerprints from intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR)-PCR data were used. The sequence data had low variation (max. 0.4%), and phylogenetic analyses did not reveal groups that correlated with the morphotype. The samples did not group according to their island of origin and the most common haplotype was shared among all islands. Although nine haplotypes occurred only on the westernmost islands, the data showed little phylogeographical structure. The population of H. t. tithymali appears to reflect a comparatively rapid and recent colonization event of the Canary Islands. The ISSR-PCR data were very variable and did not reveal patterns corresponding to morphological variation or geographical distribution. Although the two morphs observed may represent the first stage of differentiation between two lineages, the recent origin of H. t. tithymali provided insufficient time for complete lineage sorting of ancestral polymorphism. Hence, the population of Hyles t. tithymali on the Canary Islands appears genetically more homogeneous than that was expected from the phenotypic distribution of the two morphotypes in the population."