Track Analysis of the North, Central, and South American Species of the Epicauta maculata Group (Coleoptera: Meloidae)

MARÍA P. CAMPOS SOLDINI; GARCIA MAILEN SOLEDAD; SAFENRAITER MELANIA E.

NEOTROPICAL ENTOMOLOGY

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOC BRASIL

Lugar: BRASIL; Año: 2015

1519-566X

We undertook a panbiogeographic analysis of 23 species of the Epicautamaculata group of America?Epicauta abeona Pinto, Epicauta adspersa(Klug), Epicauta andersoni Werner, Epicauta atomaria (Germar), Epicautaapache Pinto, Epicauta cavernosa (Courbon), Epicauta dilatipennis Pic,Epicauta fulvicornis (Burmeister), Epicauta horni Champion, Epicautajeffersi Pinto, Epicauta koheleri Denier, Epicauta lizeri Denier, E. maculata(Say), Epicauta magnomaculata Martin, Epicauta minutepunctataBorchmann, Epicauta nigropunctata (Blanchard), Epicauta normalis Werner,Epicauta ocellata (Dugès), Epicauta pardalis LeConte, picauta phoenixWerner, Epicauta pluvialis Borchmann, Epicauta proscripta Werner,Epicauta rubella Denier, and Epicauta ventralis Werner?with the purposeof analyzing the distributional data for taxa, to establish patterns of distributionof an ancestral biota and areas where these groups haveinteracted. Based on the overlap of 20 individual tracks, four generalizedtracks constituted by different numbers of species were identified; two ofthem are located in the Nearctic region and the Mexican transition zone(tracks ?A? and ?B?), and the other two are distributed in the Neotropicalregion and the South America transition zone (?C?, ?D?). Six nodes wererecognized: Two of them are included in the Nearctic Region, node ?I?located in northern USA and node ?II? located in southwestern USA, bothat the intersection of the tracks ?A? and ?B?. The other four are included inthe Neotropical Region at the intersection of the tracks ?C? and ?D?: Node?III? is located in Chaco province; node ?IV? is located in Parana Forestprovince; node ?V? is located in the northwest of Argentina in Punaprovince, and node ?VI? is located in Monte province.