Molecular phylogeny of the small ermine moth genus Yponomeuta (Lepidoptera, Yponomeutidae) in the palaearctic.

Background: The small ermine moth genus Yponomeuta (Lepidoptera, Yponomeutidae) contains 76 species that are specialist feeders on hosts from Celastraceae, Rosaceae, Salicaceae, and several other plant families. The genus is a model for studies in the evolution of phytophagous insects and their host-plant associations. Here, we reconstruct the phylogeny to provide a solid framework for these studies, and to obtain insight into the history of host-plant use and the biogeography of the genus.

New Guinea: A Correlation between Accreting Areas and Dispersing Sapindaceae.

A correlation between accreting (hybridizing) areas and dispersing taxa (several genera of Southeast Asian/Australian Sapindaceae) is theoretically impossible in cladistic biogeography. However, in particular circumstances (primitive absence followed by colonization and speciation) cladistic methods can reconstruct (part of) the historical sequence of accretion. In this example, the phases in the accretion history of more than 30 terranes of the northern half of New Guinea correspond reasonably well with the generalized area cladogram of the Sapindaceae.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF GOLOBOFF'S TREE FITNESS MEASURE F.

- Goloboff recently introduced a method of character weighting that can be performed concomitantly with tree reconstruction. The basis for this method is his tree fitness measure F. The behaviour of F is examined for a number of hypothetical and real data sets.