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Where do subfamilies end and families begin?
Presented by: Joe Martinez, McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
Abstract: Monophyly of the moth superfamily Noctuoidea is strongly supported by morphological and molecular evidence, but the status of its families and subfamilies remains uncertain. This is especially the case for the second largest family, Noctuidae, due its long-time use as a ‘trash can’ taxon for placement of species whose true family affiliations could not be more reliably inferred with morphology. During this talk, I will show how I bridge two different methods in order to begin decoding the evolutionary history of Noctuoidea and demonstrate that, even in the age of phylogenomics, traditional museum collections are still integral to evolutionary research.
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