Ambush bugs (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Phymatinae) are sit‐and‐wait predators of flower‐visiting insects including pollinators. Broad species distribution ranges, intraspecific polymorphism, sexual dimorphism and subtle interspecific differences all contribute to making species delimitation especially difficult in this group, which is used as a model in the study of interactions between sexual dimorphism and sexual selection. Species boundaries among Nearctic ambush bugs in the common and frequently collected erosa species group (11 species, nine subspecies) have therefore remained unclear, resulting in a complex and poorly justified taxonomy. Recent molecular phylogenetic research suggested that several widespread Nearctic species are para‐ or polyphyletic. We here build on this research, integrating geometric morphometrics, molecular species delimitation approaches and host plant association data to provide a comprehensive dataset with respect to both taxon and character sampling with the goal of teasing apart evolutionary lineages of Nearctic Phymata Latreille. Although molecular‐based species delimitation analyses suggested a variety of species hypotheses, probably as a result of striking discordance between mitochondrial and nuclear ribosomal genes, the combination of these with geometric morphometric data enabled us to confidently delimit several of these problematic taxa. In addition, geometric morphometric analysis of pronotal shape revealed undocumented morphological patterns that appear to be useful in the diagnosis of many of the surveyed taxa. The results from this study provide an objective foundation for the much‐needed taxonomic revision of the most ubiquitous ambush bugs in North America.

中文翻译：

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Nearctic 伏击昆虫中的综合物种定界（异翅目：赤翅目：飞蛾科）：来自分子、几何形态计量学和生态关联的见解

伏击虫（半翅目：赤翅目：飞蛾科）是包括传粉昆虫在内的访花昆虫的坐等捕食者。广泛的物种分布范围、种内多态性、性二态性和微妙的种间差异都有助于使该组的物种定界变得特别困难，它被用作研究性二态性和性选择之间相互作用的模型。因此，常见和经常收集的 erosa 物种组（11 种，9 个亚种）中近北区伏击虫之间的物种界限仍不清楚，导致分类复杂且缺乏合理性。最近的分子系统发育研究表明，几个分布广泛的近北物种是副系或多系的。我们在这里建立在这项研究的基础上，整合几何形态测量学，分子物种定界方法和寄主植物关联数据，以提供关于分类群和特征采样的综合数据集，目的是梳理近北区 Phymata Latreille 的进化谱系。尽管基于分子的物种定界分析提出了多种物种假设，可能是由于线粒体和核核糖体基因之间存在显着差异，但将这些与几何形态测量数据相结合，使我们能够自信地对这些有问题的分类群中的几个进行定界。此外，前叶形状的几何形态计量分析揭示了未记录的形态模式，这些模式似乎对许多被调查类群的诊断有用。