Subgenus

The genus is one of the most important taxonomic categories because it appears in the two-part species name, is easier to identify than the species, and is very commonly the least inclusive category employed in paleontological, ecomorphological, phylogenetic, evolutionary, and biogeographic comparisons. However, the theoretical and practical definitions of genera have received little attention in the New World monkey literature. Six genus-level changes in platyrrhine taxonomy have been suggested since 1998. The genera Leontocebus, Mico, Oreonax, and Sapajus, have been revalidated and Callibella and BTorquatus^ proposed as new. Divergence time is becoming the favored criterion when defining genera, but most molecular phylogenetic studies date the divergence between alleles, not between species, which is the actual date of interest when studying systematics. I here review the recent genus-level changes in platyrrhine taxonomy and propose that we adopt a Bfocused monophyly^ approach for defining genera that overlays a wide variety of morphological, behavioral, and ecological characteristics on the molecular phylogeny to produce a classification. This proposal aims to facilitate communication among researchers and to offer a robust, more predictive, taxonomy that will better withstand future investigations.

: We studied the phylogenetic relationships in the subgenus of the Polyommatus (subgenus Agrodiaetus) butterflies in the Balkan Peninsula. Preliminarily identifications of all specimens were based on their wing morphology. In turn, all individuals were examined for a larger number of morphological characters, that proved useful in taxonomy of the subgenus. Phylogenetic relationships were reconstructed using the mitochondrial DNA gene COI, used as a DNA barcodes. We reconstructed phylogeny with the Bayesian analysis and then compared these results with the morphological characteristics and distribution ranges of studied species. Only Polyommatus admetus can be unambigously identified using morphological traits; the identiy of other herein studied species cannot be inferred from morphology alone due to high intraspecific variation. The phylogentic confirmed the presence of at least five species (P. admetus, P. ripartii, P. aroaniensis, P. orphicus in P. eleniae) in our samples. According to the geographical distribution of the samples, we could not confirm alopatry of closely related species. Simpatry between more closely related species suggests that even morphologically similar species are reproductively isolated. We also found that the distribution range of the P. orphicus species is larger than previously thought.