Complete mitochondrial genome of Simao pine caterpillar moth, Dendrolimus kikuchii (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) and the related phylogenetic analysis

Abstract

Dendrolimus kikuchii, the Simao pine caterpillar moth is an economically important forest pest causing great damage to coniferous trees in south China. The whole mitogenome for the moth was sequenced using next-generation sequencing technology. The moth has a total length of 15,422 bp in mitogenome size. The nucleotide composition is biased toward adenine and thymine, accounting for 79.2%: A = 40.7%, T = 38.5%, G = 8.1%, and C = 12.7%. The phylogeny showed that D. kikuchii was closely grouped with D. punctatus, D. tabulaeformis, Euthrix laeta, and Trabala vishnou guttata to form the monophyletic clad for the Lasiocampidae family of Bombycoidea superfamily with strong nodal support.

Keywords

• dendrolimus kikuchii
• mitochondrial genome
• molecular phylogeny