Phylogeographic Analyses of an Endemic Damselfly,
Euphaea formosa (Insecta: Odonata) from Taiwan
Huang Jen-pan
Department of Life Science, Tunghai University, Taiwan
Abstract
The river and stream system in Taiwan has been shifted many times throughout
the island’s geographical past. The historical changes in riverine geology are an
important factor influencing the current biogeographic distribution and genetic
structures of the fresh water fauna in Taiwan. In the past, despite many
phylogeographic research devoted to terrestrial fauna, studies of the fresh water
invertebrates in Taiwan have been overlooked ever since, especially the aquatic
insects. The aquatic insects exhibiting a variety of life history characteristics
provide great opportunities to investigate how past and present geographical barriers
(aquatic environment) affect their genetic structures and patterns of lineage
divergence. Adult males of the endemic damselfly species, Euphaea formosa,
exhibits aggressive behavior and strong territoriality toward conspecifics. These life
history characteristics limit themselves in restricted aquatic habitats, in the same way
as the freshwater fishes. On the other hand, the mobile adult life stage may
influence their genetic structures more like the other terrestrial fauna did. In addition,
these damselflies are very abundant and widespread throughout the island, providing
another advantage for studying this species. Therefore, E. formosa represents an
ideal organism to work with. Here, I would like to use E. formosa as an example
along with modern techniques to address the following questions: First, to investigate
how geohistorical barriers affect genetic structures of this freshwater insect.
Secondly, if there existed well defined genetic structures, which ecological and
evolutionary factors (or combined) were responsible for shaping the present genetic
structures. Thirdly, in addition to the indirect evidence obtained from molecular data,
I would like to estimate the dispersal ability of both males and females. Fourthly, I
will study the morphometric and molecular differences between E. formosa and the
closely-related E. yayeyamana (endemic species from two Japanese islands, Iriomote
and Ishigaki) to test whether they consist distinct species or lineages. I have
obtained E. formosa from 18 populations representing all major stream systems
throughout Taiwan. My preliminary results suggested that the mitochondrial
cytochrome oxidase Ⅰand Ⅱ gene alone (616 and 459 bps) can not resolve the
relationships among E. formosa populations from various rivers and streams in
Taiwan. These results suggest that either the E. formosa exhibited very high
dispersal ability or it may be a recently diverged species in Taiwan.
Other possibility
including the inappropriate choice of molecular markers for the level of resolution.
In a preliminary test of the ribosomal spacer ITS1 region, I found three point
substitutions and a microsatellite site (GA repeats) that separate populations from
Shimenken and Nanshi to Touchien and Pinan. In the future, I will use AFLP
(Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) technique for a genome-wide screening
of additional molecular data. Currently, I am developing Odonata-specific primers
to investigate the molecular evolution of the mitochondrial A+T-rich region, and to
test the utility of this region for population genetic studies of dragonflies and
damselflies.
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