The complete mitochondrial genome and phylogenetic analysis of the European map butterfly Araschnia levana (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

Abstract

The European map butterfly Araschnia levana (Linnaeus, 1758) is a species showing extreme seasonal polyphenism. The complete 15,207 bp circular A. levana mitogenome consisting of 81.6% AT nucleotides, was assembled by Illumina genome skimming. It includes 22 tRNAs, 13 protein-coding genes, 2 rRNAs, and a control region in the typical butterfly gene order. Araschnia levana COX1 features an atypical CGA start codon and ATP6, COX1, COX2, ND1, ND3, and ND4 have incomplete stop codons completed by 3'A residues added to the mRNA. Phylogenetic reconstruction places A. levana as a basal lineage within tribe Nymphalini, consistent with previous phylogenetic hypotheses.

Keywords: Illumina sequencing; Lepidoptera; Nymphalidae; Nymphalini; mitogenomics.

Figure 1.

Maximum likelihood phylogeny (GTR + G model, G = 0.2330, likelihood score 117762.66543) of Araschnia levana (Tribe Nymphalini), 4 additional mitogenomes from tribe Nymphalini, 29 mitogenomes from tribe Junonini, 5 from Kallimini, 1 from Victorini, and 2 outgroup from tribe Melitaeini in subfamily Nymphalinae based on 1 million random addition heuristic search replicates (with tree bisection and reconnection). One million maximum parsimony heuristic search replicates produced 16 trees (parsimony score 20,698 steps) which differ from one another only by the arrangement of Junonia coenia mitogenomes and one of which has an identical tree topology to the maximum likelihood tree depicted here. Numbers above each node are maximum likelihood bootstrap values and numbers below each node are maximum parsimony bootstrap values (each from 1 million random fast addition search replicates).