Elaborating the phylogeny of Noctuidae by focusing on relationships between north European taxa

Noctuidae are the one of the largest and taxonomically most challenging families of Lepidoptera with more than 12,000 species. Earlier phylogenetic studies using a limited number of molecular markers have helped in resolving evolutionary relationships within Noctuidae, but many groups have still received very little attention. A phylogenomic tree of Noctuidae was inferred using 333 species with the help of anchored hybrid enrichment method of sequencing, focusing on north European fauna. The final data matrix comprised fragments of 548 protein coding genes and totalled 249,138 nucleotides. Though the results largely support earlier hypotheses on the phylogenetic structure of Noctuidae, several cases were revealed where updates to the current taxonomy of the family are required. These include upgrading Prodeniinae Forbes to subfamily (stat. rev.) and Poliini Beck to tribe (stat. rev.), sinking Cosmiina Guenée into Xylenina Guenée (syn. n.), moving Xylocampa Guenée to Oncocnemidinae Forbes & Franclemont, synonymizing Cornutiplusia Kostrowicki with Autographa Hübner (syn. n.), Epilecta Hübner with Noctua Linnaeus (syn. n.), Cryptocala Benjamin with Noctua (syn. rev.) and Senta Stephens with Leucania Ochesnheimer (syn. rev.). Pseudaletia Franclemont (stat. rev.) and Aneda Sukhareva (stat. rev.) are elevated to full genus, Coenophila Stephens is downranked to subgenus of Xestia Hübner (stat. n.), and Anorthoa Berio to subgenus of Orthosia Ochesnheimer (stat. rev.). These changes led to several new or revised combinations: Autographa circumflexa (Linnaeus) (comb. rev.), Noctua linogrisea Denis & Schiffermüller (comb. rev.), Noctua chardinyi (Boisduval) (comb. rev.), Leucania flammea (Curtis) (comb. rev.), Pseudaletia separata (Walker) (comb. rev.), Aneda rivularis (Fabricius) (comb. rev.), Xestia subrosea (Stephens) (comb. n.) and Orthosia munda (Denis & Schiffermüller) (comb. rev.). Several further conflicts with the current classification requiring further studies were highlighted.