Lehmann, Ingo: First revision of the family Metarbelidae Strand, 1909 (Lepidoptera, Cossoidea Leach, 1815) and a phylogeny based on adult morphology of 60 genera from the Afrotropical and Oriental Region. - Bonn, 2019. - Dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Online-Ausgabe in bonndoc: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:5n-55423
@phdthesis{handle:20.500.11811/8060,
urn: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:5n-55423,
author = {{Ingo Lehmann}},
title = {First revision of the family Metarbelidae Strand, 1909 (Lepidoptera, Cossoidea Leach, 1815) and a phylogeny based on adult morphology of 60 genera from the Afrotropical and Oriental Region},
school = {Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn},
year = 2019,
month = aug,

note = {This thesis represents the first revision of the family Metarbelidae Strand, 1909. The author's extensive research on Metarbelidae includes fieldwork made in nine lowland and montane forests of Kenya (1994–2008; 2015–2018) as well as an extensive study of specimens from museum and private collections (1994–2018). At the family-level some notes are presented on possible relationships to Cossidae, Dudgeoneidae and Ratardidae. The author presents morphological diagnoses of 60 genera of Metarbelidae, including 20 already published genera and 40 genera new to science from the Afrotropical and Oriental Region. 50 genera are distributed on the African mainland, two on Madagascar, three on the Arabian Peninsula, one in Nepal and four genera occur on the Sunda shelf. The genus Stenagra Hampson is excluded from the Metarbelidae. Six genera that were published as Metarbelidae were not studied as their type species were not available during the author's work at various museums. At the species-level, the sample contains 442 species from the whole Afrotropical Region as well as species from Nepal, Malaysia and the Sunda shelf. Other species, e.g. from Thailand and Sri Lanka were studied, but were not included in this sample. As a result of this study the systematics on the species level will undergo further change for ca. 120 already published species in the future.
As a first step, seven plesiomorphic characters were determined and are presented for the "Basal Group" (genera Teragra/Gen.Nov.A) of Metarbelidae as a basis for the further delimitation of clades using apomorphic characters. One of these plesiomorphies, the occurrence of a fully developed CuP vein in the forewing, has been only found in species that occur mainly to the South of the Zambezi River or close to this river.
The author presents the ground pattern with its autapomorphies and apomorphies for each genus, distribution maps and figures for all 60 genera. Some genera have a very small distribution range, e.g. Ortharbela, Aethiopina; few genera have a large distribution range, e.g. Kroonia, Marshalliana. Twenty genera have only strict endemic or near-endemic species, e.g. Metarbela, all genera on Madagascar, all genera on the Sunda shelf; some genera on the Arabian Peninsula. Species of those genera might be of particular interest from the nature conservation point of view since habitats with many endemics have a high conservation value. Areas with high endemism among Metarbelidae occur in the Afromontane Region (particularly in Eastern Africa), Lower Guinea, in the Somalia-Masai Region and on Madagascar. Endemic species of Gen.Nov.F occur in arid areas of Kenya and Somalia. They are one example that species of arid areas are local endemics. The author's view that many Metarbelidae of arid areas might be endemic is supported by the fact that there has been no species or any genus found yet that extends unbroken southwesterly from the Somali Peninsula to the Western Cape/Namibia, e.g. via the "drought corridor" sensu Balinsky (1962). This corridor existed several times during dry glacial periods. Destruction of forests and/or woodlands by humans and/or fire favour the extinction of endemic species.
In a binary data matrix 161 apomorphies were scored using the Dudgeoneidae as outgroup. 50 homoplasies were found by the author before and were excluded from this data matrix. Based on the morphological data a phylogeny of Metarbelidae was constructed using Bayesian Inference and Maximum Parsimony. Among 161 apomorphies 60 of which represent parsimony-informative characters. The consistency index of 0.8154 showed relatively high consistency of the data. The first split separates the "Basal Group", the second split separates three large groups of genera with 24 ("Afromontane Group"), 14 ("West Africa-Sunda Group") and 14 ("Mali-Zambezia-Somalia-Malagasy Group") genera; a fourth group comprises two sister-groups ("Lower Guinea-Sunda Group" and "Salagena-Arabia Group"); two genera, including Saalmulleria, remain as single genera without affiliation. A general feature among the parsimony-informative characters is that the simplest, soft, thinly sclerotized characters of the genitalia occur in species of the "Basal Group" and "Afromontane Group" mainly on the Southern African Plateau and in particular in the Afromontane archipelago-like regional centre of endemism sensu White (1983) of the eastern part of the Republic of South Africa. All habitats of the "Basal Group" are located in areas that are geomorphologically stable since at least 65 Ma and hence, provide habitats under long stable geological conditions, possibly with a climate that is also more stable.
There is high support for monopyhly from Bayesian Inference as well as Maximum Parsimony (pp: all above 0.92; Bootstrap: all above 62 in MP) that all closely related species of nine genera (except Saalmulleria), that occur not on the African mainland, belong to genera that have their ancestors on the African mainland. Hence, also all species of the Oriental Region have their stem lineage representatives in the Afrotropical Region. Furthermore, the constructed dendrogram shows that genera which include only lowland species have common ancestors that first occurred in montane areas. This hypothesis is supported by parsimony-informative characters that become more sclerotized and more complex, particularly in species of the lowland rain forest and its transition zones, maybe as a kind of adaptation, e.g. a broad band that connects the valva ventrally. The split that separates the sister-group that includes species of one genus occurring on Madagascar and species of one genus occurring along the eastern coast of Africa is supported with high monophyly.
Ancestral area reconstruction with RASP predicted the ancestral distribution of many Metarbelidae (24 genera) in the Afromontane Region suggesting a high importance for the evolution of this family.
Further studies are needed on the Metarbelidae of the Oriental Region, and at least 50 genera with their mainly new species have to be described and published in the future to complete the revision on the family Metarbelidae.
However, this thesis will stand as a record of what the Metarbelidae were like in regard to their systematic and taxonomy in the past 135 years in the Afrotropical and Oriental Region (1882 to 2017).},

url = {https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11811/8060}
}

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