The genus Scoparia (Lepidoptera, Crambidae) from Galongla Snow Mountain of China, with DNA barcoding and descriptions of three new species

Abstract

Four species from Galongla Snow Mountain, southeastern Tibet of China are revealed as members of the genus Scoparia by combining DNA barcoding (658 bp of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit I, COI) and morphological characters. Three species are described as new to science: S. varians Li, sp. nov., S. nussi Li, sp. nov. and S. lii Li, sp. nov. The female of S. simplicissima Li is described for the first time. All species are described and illustrated, including the habitat, characters of intraspecific variability and sexual dimorphism. A map showing the localities on the Tibetan Plateau, where more than 40% of Chinese Scoparia species are endemic, is also provided. The results suggest the genus Scoparia has high species diversity on the Tibetan Plateau and may exhibit potential for specific adaptation to high plateau environments.

Keywords:

• COI
• mtDNA
• morphology
• Scopariinae
• taxonomy
• Tibetan Plateau

Acknowledgements

We give our cordial thanks to Dr Matthias Nuss (Senckenberg Naturhistorische Sammlungen Dresden, Dresden, Germany) for providing valuable literature. We would also like to express our sincere thanks to Xiaoke Zhang and Dandan He for the fieldwork in the expedition to Tibet. We are deeply grateful to Dr Jurate De Prins for her kind support during the senior author's study in the insect collection of Natural History Museum, London. Special thanks are given to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions on the manuscript. We are very grateful to the Associate Editor, Professor Andrew Brower for great linguistic help and correction of the manuscript, important and generous advice. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [no. 31160428].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental material

Table S1. Description of the samples that we used for phylogenetic analysis, including DNA number, taxon, sex, collection localities and GenBank accession numbers.

Table S2. Overview of Chinese localities where Scoparia species have been recorded (administrative divisions given in bold and listed alphabetically) with geographic coordinates in decimal system.

Table S3. Percentage of divergence in the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences of the Scoparia species with out-groups.

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2015.1140246.