Abstract: 【Aim】 At present, the taxonomic status of Aporia and Mesapia is still uncertain. This study aims to explore the phylogenetic relationship between Aporia and Mesapia. 【Methods】 Partial sequences of the COI and EF-1α genes of 19 species (including 13 species of Aporia, one species of Mesapia, and five species of other three genera used as the outgroups) collected from China were sequenced and analyzed. Based on the combined sequence of the two genes, the phylogenetic relationships of these species were reconstructed and analyzed with the maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) methods. 【Results】 The sequence analysis showed that the COI sequence is 657 bp and the EF-1α sequence is 642 bp in length. There are 439 variable sites and 249 parsimony-informative sites in the 1 299 bp nucleotides of the combined sequence of the two genes, and the percentage of A+T is significantly higher than that of C+G for the whole sequence. The phylogenetic analysis showed that the 14 species except the outgroups included in this study were recovered as monophyletic by strong BV (100) and PP (1.00). In the phylogenetic tree, one branch is (A. oberthuri + A. goutellei)+(A. delavayi+(A. agathon+(A. martineti+(A. largeteaui+A. gigantea)))), another is A. genestieri+(A. leucodice+((A. crataegi+A. potanini)+(M. peloria+(A. bieti+A. hippia)))). 【Conclusion】 Our results support that the genus Mesapia should be synonymized under Aporia. Moreover, our data do not support any subdivisions of Aporia into subgenera or species groups.  

Key words:  Pieridae; Aporia, Mesapia, COI, EF-1α, phylogeny