New distribution and range extension records of geometrid moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) from two western Himalayan protected areas

: This article presents new distribution and range extension records (including new records from the state of Uttarakhand) of 12 species of the Geometridae family along with their taxonomic records. The records are based on field collections, where sampling was done along elevation and vegetation gradients in the buffer zones of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve and Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary, two prominent protected areas in the western Himalayan Indian state of Uttarakhand. DNA barcoding was performed for some of the species for confirmation of identification in addition to the morphological identifications. Voucher specimens are deposited in a public repository for future reference.


INTRODUCTION
Geometridae are the second-largest family of moths, globally distributed, known to include approximately 24,000 species worldwide (Scoble & Hausmann 2007;VanNieukerken et al. 2011), whereas 2,041 species are recorded from India (Kirti et al. 2019). Most species are slenderly built, generally with weak flying ability, and nocturnal or crepuscular. At rest, the fasciae of the wing pattern are continuous. Geometrids are recognised by the presence of paired tympanal organ at the base of the abdomen in adults and the reduced prolegs in the larvae (Minet & Scoble 1999). This group has also been the subject of a number of recent large-scale taxonomic and phylogenetic works (e.g., Sihvonen & Siljander 2005;Sihvonen et al. 2011Sihvonen et al. , 2020Brehm et al. 2019;Murillo-Ramos et al. 2019). Although the taxonomy of this family is well established for the temperate regions, tropical areas still need large-scale revisions.
Geometrid moths have been established as a model group for biodiversity studies, community analyses, and ecological research in temperate and tropical regions (Axmacher et al. 2004(Axmacher et al. , 2009Brehm et al. 2013Brehm et al. , 2018Beck et al. 2017). They are sensitive to climate change (Cheng et al. 2018) and environmental conditions, making them an ideal indicator group to monitor forest recovery and habitat disturbance (New 2004;Beck et al. 2017).
From the western Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, where our study was conducted, some prominent work on moth diversity include: Arora (1997), Smetacek (1994Smetacek ( , 2008, Sanyal et al. (2011Sanyal et al. ( , 2013Sanyal et al. ( , 2017, Dey et al. (2015, Sanyal (2015), Sondhi & Sondhi (2016) and Dey (2019). Sanyal et al. (2011Sanyal et al. ( , 2013 and Dey et al. (2015 looked into the diversity and distribution of moth assemblages. Dey et al. (2019) present a DNA barcode reference library of geometrid species from western Himalaya. Recently, Chandra et al. (2019) included moth diversity in two Protected Areas from Uttarakhand. There is a lot of area still to be studied in this mountainous state to understand the diversity and the underlying patterns in a more comprehensive way.
Our current study was conducted in two western Himalayan protected areas: a) Nanda Devi National Park area which is a part of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR). It covers an area of 6,407.03km² (core area: 712.12km 2 , buffer zone: 5148.57km 2 , and transition zone: 546.34km 2 ), with an altitudinal range of 1,800m-7,816m; and b) The Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS) (30.416-30.683 N, 78.916-79.366 E). The altitude ranges 1,160-7,068 m covering an area of 975 km 2 . Both these protected areas are located in the Chamoli-Rudraprayag District in the state of Uttarakhand and are the prominent protected areas in the western Himalaya. The habitats range from mixed oak forests to the lush alpine meadows (Image 1). The combination of human pressure, pristine forest areas and a large altitudinal range make them ideal sites for exploring trends in moth diversity.
Here we present new geographic distribution and range extension records of 12 geometrid species from the state of Uttarakhand which will add to the distribution data of this family from a threatened and fragmented landscape of the western Himalaya.

Sampling methodology
Specimens were collected from the buffer regions of two protected areas in the western Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR) and Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS) (Image 2). The study areas were stratified on the basis of elevation and vegetation types to explore the moth diversity along these gradients. Sampling was done at every 200 m along the elevation from 1,500 m to 3,500 m (details of the collection sites in Table 1). Two light-traps with 12W solar lamps were operated for the first 3-4 hours from dusk as this is the time of maximum activity of most geometrid species. Late night sampling was not possible due to logistic constraints. In KWS, we used lepiLED (Brehm 2017) to set up the light-trap.

DNA barcoding
Specimens of some species were DNA barcoded (COI 5' gene aiming at recovering the 658 bp barcode fragment). To do this, one dry leg was removed from J TT each specimen with sterile forceps and transferred to a 96-well microplate preloaded with one drop of 95% ethanol in each well. DNA extraction and sequencing were performed at the Canadian Centre for DNA barcoding, University of Guelph, with standardized highthroughput protocols for DNA barcode amplification and sequencing (Ivanova et al. 2006;deWaard et al. 2008).

Species identification
Identifications of the species in this paper were done with the help of the literature mentioned in the respective species account and also by comparing with the Geometridae collections of the Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Germany, including the famous collection of Claude Herbulot. Voucher specimens are deposited at the Insect collection section of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. In some cases, DNA barcodes provided additional information on species identity. DNA barcode data are accessible in the public dataset DS-HIMALGEO on BOLD database (https:// doi.org/10.5883/DS-HIMALGEO) (Ratnasingham & Hebert 2007. Distribution in India: Kashmir: Srinagar; new record from the state of Uttarakhand (Choi 2000 mentions that the species is found in the "northern part of India", but no other record is found from other Northern Indian states)

94404)
Remarks: Sanyal et al. 2017 mentions this record by PD. A long series of this species from Western Nepal province shows a broader forewing costal spot in almost all of the >200 specimens.
Remarks: Identified in the collection Herbulot in Zoologische Staatssammlung Munich, Germany, as "Photoscotosia dejuncta occidens Herbulot" which apparently is an unpublished manuscript name intended for the populations from Himachal Pradesh which differ from nominotypical P. dejuncta by a more greyish coloration and the missing pale costal spot near the forewing apex. This name was used in Dey et al. (2019) without description (nomen nudum). Yazaki (1995) described Photoscotosia pallidimacula based on specimens from central Nepal, showing paler forewings and a broadly white hindwing costa. More research is needed to clarify the taxonomy and species delimitation in this group.

DISCUSSION
Our study clearly highlights the gaps in the existing distributional data for moths, especially in western Himalaya and reiterates the effectiveness of an integrative biodiversity assessment in a hyper-diverse taxon. So far, the moth diversity of the western Himalayan state of Uttarakhand has just been investigated sporadically. Roonwal et al. (1963), a report of the entomological collections of the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun was among the first publications recording moths from this state. Later on, several other publications, as mentioned in the introduction have contributed to the understanding of the diversity and distribution of moths from this western Himalayan state. Sanyal (2015), Sanyal et al. (2017), Dey (2019), and Dey et al. (2019) have focussed on the diversity and distributions of geometrid moths specifically; however, serious gaps still remain as these studies could not cover the entire elevational/habitat range, which would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the diversity and the ecological processes governing their distributions.
Recently, global insect decline has been in the spotlight (Hallmann et al. 2017;Lister & Garcia 2018) and it is time that concerted efforts towards documenting and monitoring insect populations are set in place, specifically in the global biodiversity hotspots. Rapid deforestation and urbanization magnify the problem, whereby we might lose critical habitats for the survival of specialised species. Such declines are a sober warning of wider environmental changes, and new distribution records will increase the biological knowledge required to understand the wider impact of such changes. Also, it will work towards fostering increased interest towards moths, which is critical in this endeavour. Some new records reported in this paper from the surroundings of Kedarnath Wildlife sanctuary were a part of a moth-survey project (https://www.rufford.org/ projects/pritha-dey/high-altitude-moth-lepidopteraheterocera-assemblages-assessing-the-diversity-andpotential-bio-indicator-species-in-kedarnath-wildlifesanctuary-india/) which simultaneously allowed us (a) to document moths from a hitherto unexplored area and (b) to conduct citizen-science workshops to spread awareness on moths. Our findings highlight the need for more such surveys to document the moth diversity across the wide elevation and habitat gradients in the western Himalayan region, where the Oriental and Palearctic biogeographic elements overlap, and which is home to unique biodiversity (Meinertzhagen 1928). Future endeavours of such kind will not only add to the current database, but will help in bringing the spotlight on the need for moth conservation in a fragmented, threatened landscape, in the largest mountain system in the world. www.threatenedtaxa.org The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is dedicated to building evidence for conservation globally by publishing peer-reviewed articles online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All articles published in JoTT are registered under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise mentioned. JoTT allows allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of articles in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

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