Mitochondrial phylogeny and comparative mitogenomics of closely related pine moth pests (Lepidoptera: <i>Dendrolimus</i> )

Abstract

The complete mitochondrial genomes of these three species were 15,417, 15,381, and 15,377 bp in length, separately. The phylogenetic analyses produced consistent results for six <i>Dendrolimus</i> species based on complete mitogenomes, two major clades were formed, one containing <i>D. spectabilis</i> clustered with <i>D. punctatus</i> + <i>D. tabulaeformis</i>, and <i>D. superans</i> as the sister group to this three-taxon clade, the other containing <i>D. kikuchii</i> and <i>D. houi</i>. Comparative analyses of the congeneric mitochondrial genomes were performed, which showed that non-coding regions were more variable than the A+T rich region. The mitochondrial nucleotide diversity was more variable when compared within than among genus, and the concatenated tRNA region was the most conserved and the nd6 genes was the most variable.