Sistemática de Angiopolybia Araujo, 1946 (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Polistinae)

Abstract

Angiopolybia is one of the Polistinae genera and is distributed from Costa Rica to south-central Brazil. It consists of the species Angiopolybia pallens (Lepeletier, 1836), A. zischkai Richards, 1978, A. paraensis (Spinola, 1851) and A. obidensis (Ducke, 1904), with morphological variations present. This taxon has a complex taxonomic history and since its original description as Rhopalidia, only one study of the phylogenetic relationships of the group has been carried out. The objectives of this study were to carry out a taxonomic review for Angiopolybia, to propose the phylogenetic relationships between between its species using morphological and molecular information and to produce a new identification key. The study was conducted with specimens from scientific collections of national and foreign institutions, and the phenotypic characters for the phylogenetic analyzes used were based on the specialized literature and the molecular data were composed of mitochondrial genes sequences Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I and ribosomal RNA 16S. Phylogenetic analyzes of Maximum Parsimony and Bayesian Inference were performed to test monophilia and internal species relationships. The new species Angiopolybia maueensis sp. nov. and Angiopolybia nigra sp. nov. are described, increasing the number of species of the genus to six. Phylogenetic analyzes of Angiopolybia corroborated the monophyletism of the taxon, with the species forming two groups ((A. pallens + A. zischkai) + ((A. obidensis + A. maueensis) + A. nigra + A. paraensis)). This study contributes to the knowledge of the diversity of the taxon and the recognition of its species, and to the elucidation of its phylogenetic relationships.