Original article Molecular comparison of the genus Junonia (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) in Myanmar Nan Zarchi Win a , Eun Young Choi a , Deok-Jin Jang a , Jinyoung Park b , Jong Kyun Park a, * a Department of Applied Biology, College of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Sangju, Republic of Korea b Department of Nature Survey, National Institute of Ecology, Seocheon, Republic of Korea article info Article history: Received 22 September 2015 Received in revised form 9 October 2015 Accepted 12 October 2015 Available online 19 October 2015 Keywords: COI gene Junonia molecular phylogeny Myanmar abstract Molecular comparison of species belonging to the genus Junonia collected from Myanmar was completed using mtDNA sequence data from 605-bp cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI). Six species were sequenced, aligned, and used to construct phylogenetic trees. The base composition of the COI sequences was 37.8% T, 15.4% C, 31.4% A, and 15.4% G, revealing strong AT bias (69.2%). The sequence distance of Junonia ranged from 1.5% to 9.0%. Nucleotide substitution primarily occurred through transition rather than transversion. Phylogenetic trees were constructed by the neighbor-joining (NJ) and maximum likelihood methods, using Hypolimnas misippus as the outgroup. Both trees had almost identical topol- ogies. All COI sequences of each species fell in the same cluster as those of the same species obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Species in Junonia exhibited the following relationships: (((J. orithya þ J. hierta) þ J. lemonias lemonias) þ J. almana almana) þ (J. atlites þ J. iphita). The clustering results were almost identical to current morphological classification. Copyright Ó 2015, National Science Museum of Korea (NSMK) and Korea National Arboretum (KNA). Production and hosting by Elsevier. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Introduction The butterfly genus Junonia Hübner, 1816, is an important part of the Nymphalidae family (subfamily Nymphalinae). The butterflies from this genus are commonly known as Buckeyes and Pansies. The genus contains 33 species that are distributed throughout all major biogeographical regions of the world, except the Palaearctic (Kodandaramaiah and Wahlberg 2007). The adults of these species are medium to large sized and are good fliers. The various members of the genus differ markedly in color, but have several character- istics in common, including prominent maculae in the discal cell of the forewing and circular ocelli (or eyespots) on the hind wings (Kodandaramaiah 2009). The eyespots on the wings are orange, blue, or pink, and are sometimes large. Eyespot characteristics (e.g., number, arrangement, size, and coloration) markedly vary across species, despite being conserved within species. In some species, the third median vein on the outer margin of the hind wing forms a short tail, with this characteristic also being observed in the anal angle. In contrast, the hind wing is nearly evenly rounded in other species. The larvae are rather stout, and are of almost of equal thickness along the entire body, which is armed with strong, branched spines. The larvae feed on a wide variety of plants (De Niceville 1886). The extant members of this genus are predominantly tropical, with 29 species being confined to tropical latitudes. One, four,17 (of which 15 are endemic), 10 (of which 8 are endemic), and three species are distributed in the Nearctic region (North America), the Neotropics, the Afrotropical region, the Oriental region, and the Australasian region, respectively (Kodandaramaiah and Wahlberg 2007). Of the 10 species from the Oriental region, six have been recorded in Myanmar (Bingham 1905; Kinyon 2004). The genera Junonia and Precis Hübner have often been treated as congeneric (Hemming 1934). However, Lesse (1952) showed that Junonia and Precis are quite distinct based on male genitalia and hind wing characteristics. Moreover, recent molecular studies have confirmed that they are distinct genera, and are not even sister genera (Wahlberg et al 2005b). The genus Junonia is well known, with the species being used as model organisms for evolutionary studies, using the development of eyespots and color patterns, and for studies on the chemical ecology and evolution of host plant * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ82 42 530 1215; fax: þ82 42 530 1218. E-mail address: entopark@knu.ac.kr (J.K. Park). Peer review under responsibility of National Science Museum of Korea (NSMK) and Korea National Arboretum (KNA). HOSTED BY Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/japb http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.japb.2015.10.003 pISSN2287-884X eISSN2287-9544/Copyright Ó 2015, National Science Museum of Korea (NSMK) and Korea National Arboretum (KNA). Productionand hosting by Elsevier. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity 8 (2015) 287e294