Revisão, morfometria e cladística de erynephala (coleoptera, chrysomelidae, galerucinae, galerucini)

Abstract

Erynephala Blake, 1970 integrates the section Schematizites (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Galerucinae, Galerucini) and it is composed by six species, five from the Nearctic Region: E. brighti Blake, 1970, E. glabra Blake, 1936, E. maritima (LeConte, 1865), E. morosa (LeConte, 1857) and E. puncticollis (Say, 1824); and one from the Neotropical Region, E. interrupta (Jacoby, 1904). The genus is characterized by the aedeagus with long median lobe and by the bifid claws in male and simple in female. Although the descriptions of the species are comprehensive, they are not complete, for instance there are no descriptions of the female genitalia or morphological structures such as tegmen and metendosternite. There is also no study about the position of Erynephala in the Section Schematizites, neither of the degree of affinity among the species. The objectives of this study are (1) to review Erynephala, providing detailed descriptions and illustrations of the internal and external morphology of males and females; (2) to distinguish the species through linear and geometric morphometrics; (3) to perform a cladistic analysis to test the monophyly of the genus and propose hypothesis of relationships among the species of Erynephala. The geometric morphometrics was more efficient to distinguish E. interrupta, E. puncticollis and E. morosa; on the other hand, the linear morphometrics clarified the species that were not delimited with the morphological characters. These two techniques allied to the study of the morphology enabled to distinguish E. maritima from de E. puncticollis var. texana (junior synonym of E. maritima), revalidating Erynephala texana (Schaeffer, 1932), stat. nov. All the analysis revealed that there are no differences between E. maritima and E. brighti, suggesting that this second species should be considered junior synonym of E. maritima. The cladistic analysis performed under implied weighting recovered the monophyly of Erynephala and reveled that the species form three clades: (((E. brighti + E. maritima) + E. texana) + (E. morosa + E. puncticollis) + E. interrupta). Monoxia (“angularis” group) was recovered as sister group of Erynephala, but Ophraella was not, genera that, as Monoxia, was considered related of Erynephala in some preview contributions. These results bring a new configuration to the species o Erynephala, however it is suggested a molecular analyses to corroborate the synonyms and to estimate the divergence time among the species.