Associating larvae and adults of the Neotropical caddisfly genus Synoestropsis Ulmer (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) using morphology and DNA mitochondrial sequences

Abstract

Synoestropsis is the only Neotropical representative of the Macronematinae tribe Polymorphanisini. Adults of Polymorphanisini are recognized by the absence of maxillary and labial palpi. Currently, Synoestropsis contains 10 described species recorded from northeast Argentina to southern Mexico. Until now, the larval stages of only one species were described, Synoestropsis furcata Flint. The goals of the present work are to associate larvae and adults of Synoestropsis species by rearing and mDNA sequence association, to describe the immature stages, and to present an identification key. Four associations were made using mDNA congruence (Synoestropsis pedicillata, Synoestropsis obliqua, Synoestropsis grisoli, and S. furcata) and two of these were corroborated by rearing immatures under laboratory conditions (S. grisoli and S. furcata); one species was associated indirectly by geographic occurrence (S. obliqua). A new diagnosis is proposed for the genus, including standardized descriptions for all species now known. Characters that can be used to diagnose the species are the shape of the apicoventral region of the foretrochantin, the presence and arrangement of foretrochantin setae, and the shape of the forecoxa and forefemur. © 2018 Elsevier GmbH