Phylogeography of Two Enigmatic Sulphur Butterflies, Alphéraky, 1897 and Staudinger, 1897 (Lepidoptera, Pieridae), with Relations to Infection.

The genus Fabricius, 1807 includes numerous taxa and forms with uncertain status and taxonomic position. Among such taxa are Alphéraky, 1897 and Staudinger, 1897, interpreted in the literature either as conspecific forms, as subspecies of different but morphologically somewhat similar species or as distinct species-level taxa. Based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers, we reconstructed a phylogeographic pattern of the taxa in question. We recover and include in our analysis DNA barcodes of the century-old type specimens, the lectotype of deposited in the Natural History Museum (Museum für Naturkunde), Berlin, Germany (ZMHU) and the paralectotype of and the lectotype of deposited in the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia (ZISP). Our analysis grouped all specimens within four (HP_I-HP_IV) deeply divergent but geographically poorly structured clades which did not support nonconspecifity of -. We also show that all studied females of the widely distributed haplogroup HP_II were infected with a single strain belonging to the supergroup B, while the males of this haplogroup, as well as all other investigated specimens of both sexes, were not infected. Our data highlight the relevance of large-scale sampling dataset analysis and the need for testing for infection to avoid erroneous phylogenetic reconstructions and species misidentification.