A taxonomic revision of western Eupholidoptera bush crickets (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae): testing the discrimination power of DNA barcode.

The genus Eupholidoptera includes 46 Mediterranean species distributedfrom Turkey to Greece, Italy and southern France. In the eastern part of its range,Eupholidoptera has been considered to consist of several distinct species, while in theBalkans and Italian peninsula only E. chabrieri has been recognized. However, thestatus of some Italian populations, confined to particular geographic areas, remainsuncertain. To investigate the delimitation of the Italian taxa of Eupholidoptera, weperformed both morphological and molecular analyses. Morphological analysis wascarried out by considering diagnostic characters usually used to distinguish differenttaxa, such as the shape of titillators in males and the subgenital plate in females.Molecular analysis was performed by sequencing three mitochondrial genes: 12SrRNA, 16S rRNA, partially sequenced and the entire gene of cox1 . Molecular markerswere used to infer phylogenetic relationships among the Italian Eupholidopteraspecies and to reconstruct the historical processes that shaped their current geographicdistribution. Results from both morphological and molecular analyses were used torevise the taxonomic arrangement of species. On the whole we were able to distinguishnine lineages of Italian Eupholidoptera, of which E. tyrrhenica sp.n. from Corsica isdescribed as a new species.