Choristoneura spp.

Status

NATIVE

PORT INTERCEPT | DOMESTIC SURVEY

Overview

Choristoneura currently comprises about 50 described species distributed primarily in the Holarctic region. Several species have recently been described from sub-Saharan Africa and placed in Choristoneura, but they may belong to other genera. On this site, we include or mention 13 of the 15 currently recognized North American species along with all of their described subspecies.

This genus contains some of the most economically important and devastating forest pests in the world. Some species are monophagous while others are highly polyphagous. In outbreak years, members of the C. fumiferana complex can defoliate large stands of conifers in northern and western North America. Choristoneura conflictana does the same with trembling aspen. Other species, such as C. rosaceana and C. parallela, are widespread, extremely polyphagous pests on large number of important food crops.

Identification of members of the genus, primarily species in the fumiferana complex, can be extremely difficult, even with molecular tools. Much is still to be learned about species boundaries, speciation, and phylogenetic relationships within this genus. As Dombroskie and Sperling (2013)Dombroskie and Sperling (2013):
Dombroskie, J. J., Sperling, F. A. H. 2013. Phylogeny of the tribe Archipini (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae: Tortricinae) and evolutionary correlates of novel secondary sexual structures. Zootaxa. 3729: 1–62. suggested that Choristoneura is polyphyletic, there may be no characters which unite the entire genus, although the shape of the uncus and sacculus have been suggested to be useful characters (Razowski 2015Razowski 2015:
Razowski, J. 2015. Diagnoses and remarks on the genera of Tortricidae (Lepidoptera). Part 3. Archipini. Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia, 58(2): 195–252.). 

Species	Male FW costal fold	Male costal margin	FW ground color	Fasciae	Distribution	Preferred host
C. conflictana	absent	concave	usually gray	poorly-defined	northern US, Canada, Rocky Mountains	Populus tremuloides
C. fractivittana	present	sinuous	yellow or pale brown	poorly-defined	eastern North America	polyphagous
C. obsoletana	absent	concave	red-orange or pale brown	poorly-defined	eastern North America except boreal	polyphagous
C. parallela	absent	concave	red-orange or pale brown	well-defined	eastern North America except boreal	polyphagous
C. rosaceana	present	sinuous	red-orange or pale brown	well-defined	widespread in North America	polyphagous
C. zapulata	absent	concave	red-orange or pale brown	well-defined	Western North America, Great Lakes	unknown
C. fumiferana complex	absent	concave	variable	variable, usually blotchy	widespread in North America, primarily boreal and western United States	Pinaceae
C. houstonana	absent	concave	red-orange or pale brown	blotchy	southern and northeastern United States	Juniperus spp.

Links

Additional photos and distribution maps for species in North America are available at Moth Photographers Group.