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. 2019 Aug 22;10(9):261.
doi: 10.3390/insects10090261.

Reassessment of the Species in the Euwallacea Fornicatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) Complex after the Rediscovery of the "Lost" Type Specimen

Sarah M Smith  1 , Demian F Gomez  2 , Roger A Beaver  3 , Jiri Hulcr  2 , Anthony I Cognato  4
Affiliations

Reassessment of the Species in the Euwallacea Fornicatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) Complex after the Rediscovery of the "Lost" Type Specimen

Sarah M Smith et al. Insects. .

Abstract

Ambrosia beetles of the Euwallacea fornicatus (Eichhoff, 1868) species complex are emerging tree pests, responsible for significant damage to orchards and ecosystems around the world. The species complex comprises seven described species, all of which are nearly identical. Given that the morphology-defined species boundaries have been ambiguous, historically, there has been much disagreement on species validity, which was compounded by the presumed loss of the type series of E. fornicatus. The species complex was recently reviewed using morphometrics to associate the type specimens to the clades delineated with molecular data under the assumption of the lost type series. We rediscovered a syntype of Xyleborus fornicatus, and reevaluated the species in the complex using morphometrics. We propose the following taxonomic changes to the species complex: Euwallacea fornicatus (=E. tapatapaoensis (Schedl, 1951); = E. whitfordiodendrus (Schedl, 1942)) syn. res.); E. fornicatior (Eggers, 1923) (=E. schultzei (Schedl, 1951) syn. nov.); E. kuroshio (Gomez and Hulcr, 2018) and E. perbrevis (Schedl, 1951) stat. res. These taxonomic changes shift the species name associated with the widely used common names for two taxa, namely: Euwallacea fornicatus should be used for the "Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer", and E. perbrevis for the "Tea Shot Hole Borer clade a". A lectotype is designated for X. fornicatus in order to stabilize the use of the name.

Keywords: ambrosia beetle; invasive species; species delineation; taxonomy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The sponsors had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or writing of the study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Syntype of Xyleborus fornicatus, female, from left to right: dorsal view, lateral view, posterior oblique view of declivity, and label information. Body length of 2.62 mm.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Classification tree from the classification and regression tree (CART) analysis built on 65 individuals representing the four species within the E. fornicatus complex. The relevant characters for the node splits are shown. The classification rates are expressed as the number of correct classifications divided by the number of observations (individual beetles) in the node for the individuals used to train the CART model.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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